‘It was malicious’: Investigation underway after horse is shot in Idaho Falls pasture
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IDAHO FALLS — A police investigation is underway and a dairy farmer is upset after one of his horses was shot over the weekend.
Lynn Pack has a 10-acre pasture on 65th North across from the Sage Lakes Golf Course in Idaho Falls where he has kept his horses for 25 years.
He checked on the animals Saturday afternoon and everything was fine. But on Sunday morning, he received a disturbing call from a neighbor near the pasture.
“He told me one of my horses was hurt. I told him I’d come over and take a look and he said, ‘You need to get up here right now,'” Pack recalls.
Pack arrived at the pasture and immediately noticed something was wrong with Tonto, a 22-year-old male horse he’s owned for eight years.
“I looked at Tonto and the first thing I thought was what the heck. I’ve been around horses all my life and this was not an injury. I realized this horse has been shot,” Pack tells EastIdahoNews.com. “It was like his leg was blown off and hanging by a tendon.”
WARNING: GRAPHIC PHOTOS
Pack found a large bullet hole in Tonto’s right rear leg and the damage was so severe that the animal needed to be put down.
There was blood in the pasture and it appeared Tonto had been shot about 15-20 feet from the fence near the road on 65th North.
“It was malicious. They did it on purpose because the gunshot went into his leg at a down angle,” Pack says.
Pack learned that a neighbor heard a gunshot between 11-11:30 p.m. on Saturday. The Idaho Falls Police Department was contacted and an investigation into the shooting is now underway.
None of the other horses in Pack’s pasture were shot and he’s trying to make sense of why someone would harm his animal.
“I just don’t understand why you’d shoot a horse. If it was a malicious animal in your backyard, I could see that, but a horse in a pasture with no houses within 150 yards? Horses don’t fight, they don’t squeal and he’s never caused any problems,” Pack says. “Tonto was just a great horse. I hope they find whoever did it.”
Anyone with information on the shooting is asked to call the Idaho Falls Police Department at (208) 529-1200.