[ako]

So sad. Skeeter was beautiful!! He even just looked like a perfectly squeezable pony!! Thankfully your in-laws obviously gave him a happy life. Poor baby. :-(

[Mara]

I don't find anything sporting about hunting a baited field. To me it's just one step above a canned hunt.

Poor pony. I'm sorry for your loss; sucks to lose such a solid equine citizen because of someone's ignorance and selfishness.

[jetsmom]

I don't find anything sporting about hunting a baited field. To me it's just one step above a canned hunt.

Poor pony. I'm sorry for your loss; sucks to lose such a solid equine citizen because of someone's ignorance and selfishness.

That's what I was thinking. Not exactly sporting to bait them to a spot and shoot them. Must make them feel really macho. Idiots.

I'd let them hunt on the property, but personally, wouldn't allow bait stations. definitely go after cost of pony, loss of earnings on pony and vet fees.

[AliCat]

I'm so sorry to hear about this. Sad all around.

[Foxtrot's]

You are kind enough to allow hunters on your property because you value the country way of life and the traditions, and then some ya-hoo does this. It is a very sad story.

Does just anybody come onto your land, or are they part of a club, or what?

[wireweiners]

I don't find anything sporting about hunting a baited field. To me it's just one step above a canned hunt.

Poor pony. I'm sorry for your loss; sucks to lose such a solid equine citizen because of someone's ignorance and selfishness.

This. Unfortunately, its quite common here. They start the baiting stations weeks before deer season. The only thing I could condone baiting around here are feral hogs because they are so destructive and dangerous.

Sorry about your pony.

[trubandloki]

Sorry for the loss.


I too live in an area where baiting (even feeding) deer is not allowed by law because of CWD. I find it weird that people bait to hunt.

[bizbachfan]

very sad, cute pony, baiting is stupid anyway

[draftdriver]

I'm sorry for the loss.

I would require the hunters to pay for the surgery and burial of the pony.

[Camstock]

very sad, cute pony, baiting is stupid anyway

Match.

[Schune]

I'm so sorry to hear that
However, while I understand the continued need to allow the hunting club to use the land, I would write a very 'strongly' worded letter to whomever is in charge of the club and tell them exactly what happened. Also, that if you find baited spots like that again in the future, action will be taken.

Heck, I'd even ask them to cover some of the costs as a previous poster suggested.

Just downright sad.

[Bacardi1]

What's even more disturbing is baiting/feeding deer is ILLEGAL here in VA from Sept. 1st through the first Sat. in January, yet the feed stores start bringing in their bags full of cob corn & deer-specific grain products in for sale starting end of August. Uh, gee whiz, whatta ya think that stuff's for? Uh, do ya think it's to bait deer? Naw, can't be. Cause that's illegal, right? Wink, wink.

Yet another reason why I despise the hunters around here & won't allow hunting on my land.

[goneriding24]

Welp, may not be a popular thought on here, but I'm seeing both sides of this story.

The new hunter may be one of the 'new breed' who doesn't understand true hunting and is a self-important @$$ and someone from the hunt club needs to tell him what to do and not do.

Hubby and bestie are hunters (been out hunting the past four days trying to blow Bambi off the trail) but they are the 'old style' and respect the land and the deer and grouse. Around here, kids go out with the older hunters and the older guys have no problem setting a kid straight about hunting rules. You either do it right or go back to the pickup and wait it out till everyone else is done for the day. Like spotlighting, sounds a good idea but isn't sporting and considered in really bad light.

The hunt club needs input from the land owners about what is allowed and not allowed. They should KNOW but in this day and age, they probably don't and haven't thought about it. I'd say go to the hunt club, lay it out for the grand poobah there about no baiting in the fields and if this happens again (heaven forbid), the hunter and club will be expected to pay all charges. I mean, who would have thought corn would be set out and the horses get into it?? The land owners didn't think of that and they are the horse owners, so, the hunter prolly didn't think of it either.

[MandyVA]

That's awful, really sorry to hear about the pony. What I don't get is, even if the guy didn't think corn would hurt the ponies, wouldn't you have to be completely stupid to put it in the field with ponies anyway, because the ponies would just eat it all?

[Canaqua]

Oh, I'm so sorry! Skeeter was just adorable, in addition your description of his being an all around good guy.

I'm not against hunting, but I agree that baiting is cheating and you NEVER take anything off, or put anything on, someone else's property without explicit permission, you never know what they've got going on, so ASK first!

[danceronice]

Living in an area where hunting is a very big deal, I can indeed attest to the fact that many hunters are idiots. Some get great joy out of the killing and even post pictures of the dead critters on FB. It make me sick. I really hope that someone approached these morons and attempted to educate them. (Though knowing the type they probably are, I'm guessing they wouldn't give a $#!%)

What's wrong with pictures? And killing an animal is kind of the point of hunting. Hard to eat or mount them if they're not dead, and some people like having a more direct relationship with their meat than plastic packages at the supermarket where they can pretend it didn't use to be walking around. There's nothing sporting at all about butchering livestock no matter how "humanely" you do it.

Are these bowhunters? That near a pasture I can see. Rifle that close would make me nervous. Baiting for bow season I also get, though it's not allowed here any more because, again, disease (though disease is also why the DNR here wants more of the antlered rats shot, too.)

[SLW]

What Ellie Mae said. I'd put a game cam in that pasture to see who the fools were that caused this needless and painful death.

[JGHIRETIRE]

I was thinking more that it was on someone else's property. What happened to asking first?

I doubt the hunter was being "arrogant"--more likely he/she/them didn't have the SLIGHTEST idea that corn could in any way hurt a horse, as don't horses get fed corn? (I'm a little more stumped by baiting, as it's more or less against the law here--mostly because of bovine TB and CWD, they don't want deer congregating. But different states, different laws.) Not arrogance, ignorance--the OP's FILs should definitely talk to whoever it is, and I'd see if they offered to pay part or all the costs (which, depending--surgery's expensive and a lot of people would put the horse down before it got that far, extreme measures aren't the hunter's fault or choice) when they found out what happened.

Corn's grain. People feed horses and other livestock grain. If the hunter's not a horse person I doubt they went in thinking it would in any way be harmful to the ponies, especially if there's already a bait station on the property. COTH has a lot of threads bemoaning the general population's ignorance of horses and the crazy things people do when they DON'T have permission to be on the property. I'd say the ass-u-me'ing is thinking there's any reason a non-horse person would know corn is bad for horses. If it's a club, this is a good reason to go over with them clearer rules about baiting, where it's allowed, and to make SURE their members get this clarified to them if they're going to be allowed to continue to use the land.

Non-horse-people don't know anything about horses. We can't forget that or put it down to arrogance or malice or even "stupidity." Stupid is being presented with information and ignoring it. Ignorance is never having had the information in the first place.

[goldenrow]

Sorry to hear about your future in-law's pony. That stinks.

However, I do wish that people wouldn't jump all over the "Hunters" as a collective group, though. I was raised hunting deer, pheasants, raccoons, and other "pests." To say that HUNTERS are inconsiderate and ignorant is just not true. PEOPLE are inconsiderate and ignorant. Please, please do not include me in their category.

I have found that there are far more problems with "hunters" coming from "the city," because they just don't know much about livestock and wildlife. This has been an unsettling trend in our area for a while now. It has become dangerous to be out in your own woods, where 'No Trespassing' signs have been posted.

I don't think the hunters are the problem in this case. It sounds to me that the problem was one rude person, not willing to ask permission.

I send the OP my condolences, and encourage others to do the same. But please don't drag the name of a whole collection of good people through the mud.

[JGHIRETIRE]

I apologize - I was not trying to single out hunters - my dad was a hunter as well. I was taught to always ask permission first - never mind the rest of it.

Sorry to hear about your future in-law's pony. That stinks.

However, I do wish that people wouldn't jump all over the "Hunters" as a collective group, though. I was raised hunting deer, pheasants, raccoons, and other "pests." To say that HUNTERS are inconsiderate and ignorant is just not true. PEOPLE are inconsiderate and ignorant. Please, please do not include me in their category.

I have found that there are far more problems with "hunters" coming from "the city," because they just don't know much about livestock and wildlife. This has been an unsettling trend in our area for a while now. It has become dangerous to be out in your own woods, where 'No Trespassing' signs have been posted.

I don't think the hunters are the problem in this case. It sounds to me that the problem was one rude person, not willing to ask permission.

I send the OP my condolences, and encourage others to do the same. But please don't drag the name of a whole collection of good people through the mud.