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Karen Oney keeps about 15 donkeys on her property in North Fort Worth. At least she did until last October, when she awoke one morning to find two of them dead in the pasture, arrow shafts protruding from their torsos. Police told Oney they had been shot from 10 feet away, possibly by someone looking for target practice.
“I’m outraged,” she told NBC 5 at the time. “This is horrible.”
Oney experienced similar feelings on Sunday morning, when a passing Fort Worth police officer contacted her after noticing yet another arrow-riddled donkey lying dead on her land, between Old Decatur Road and State Highway 287.
“‘Are you kidding me?’ That’s exactly what went through my head,” Oney told NBC 5, going on to wonder at the mindset of someone who slaughters donkeys for sport. “What pleasure do you get? We see how friendly they are — they come right up to you — so what kind of sport is that? I don’t get it at all.”
Fort Worth police and the Tarrant County game warden are investigating the cases. On a not completely unrelated note, the Star-Telegram reports that we are in the midst of the Donkey Crisis of 2012, as drought and hay prices have prompted a spike in the number of abandoned equines.