This reminds me of the case in Texas many years ago, where a drunk mf’er trespassed into a woman’s pasture, and stabbed her filly to death for no reason other than he was drunk and a waste of good air.
IIRC, either the DA refused to press charges, or the jury found him not guilty because he was drunk. He never paid for the crime, and even got his relatives to go after the horse owner for plastering his guilty ass on social media. He’s one I daydream about running into.
I think we really do have a change in society. There was a horse shot in the pasture one road over - teenagers watching a TikTok challenge thing that you go shoot livestock. So, as the sun is nearing sundown here, I make sure my horses are not turned out with access near the road.
Just the way it is these days…like so many other things.
So sad and I cannot imagine the trauma these poor horses and their owners are experiencing.
Domestic violence comes to mind. Lots of cases where a jealous deranged ex attacks and kills a woman’s beloved pet. What a terrible person! Best wishes to the traumatized horses and people. 
There are a lot of mentally dysfunctional humans out there. Our current political and cultural climate has l’oosened the reins’ so to speak, for many of them: watch videos of unhinged people road raging or ranting in stores, restaurants, on planes, at neighbors or those walking while black/brown or women at gyms daring to wear less clothing. Disturbed individuals also practice on animals before humans. The lonely young men who can’t fit in come to mind, too.
Has this always happened? Yes, yes it did. Sometimes on a massive scale like the wholesale slaughter of bison in the mid/late 1800s. Just shooting and shooting and shooting. Or duck and geese hunters who blast dozens out of the air and leave them on the side of the road (that happened here in the PDX area this winter). The thrill of the kill is what the fish and game wardens call it.
“The thrill of the kill.”
Good lord.
We humans can be a very sick species.
We humans ARE a very sick species.
Tragic and heartbreaking, and getting even worse or so it seems. Monstrous 
Horses have always had a particular fascination for certain deranged people. The stories of death and/or mutilation go back for centuries.
The problem with social media is that bad things get clicks which then drives traffic: we all know that. In reality, outside the phone and tablet, people are naturally kind, helpful and altruistic which is a) how we have become such an amazingly successful species and b) how we have billions currently living together on the globe with remarkably few wars or even local violence.
That heartbreaking story was posted here by a COTH member.
@Alex_and_Bodie_s_Mom my brother dated a woman whose Dad was a big game hunter.
He had a trophy room with his taxidermied trophies. Including a giraffe.
Because, I suppose, that’s one dangerous herbivore.
Members of my Driving Club went on safari & came back with the heads of the - IIRC - Eland they shot. They were served the edible parts & admitted the taste was awful. So, the thrill was in killing something for no reason?
My friend used to be a big game hunter, but he only did it legally, hunting where the population of certain species was too large, in order to thin them out.
He said he would never kill a giraffe, because they often go into a trance like state, and you could literally walk up to one and shoot it and it would never know you were there.
Maybe they had been watching their cat too much?
(Sorry, attempt at stupid humor.)
Killing is Killing- doesn’t matter if it’s Legal-
Hunting and shooting is killing.
Hunting is indeed killing. However, the purpose behind the death of the animal is for consumption rather than to simply kill. Those who kill and kill for the thrill of it are suffering from some sort of mental disorder. I doubt there are many hunters who are simply out for the thrill-- though certainly, there’s a level of excitement and challenge involved.
I think of how much fun it is for me to fight a fish, a salmon or sturgeon, the physicality and feeling of triumph after it’s in the net. Whether I let it go or keep it, the thrill is there. While I don’t hunt mammals and doubt very much I could shoot something, I have family who does. None of them kill to kill. They eat every part of that deer or elk. They enjoy the stalking, the time in the woods, the challenge. The people who killed and maimed those horses are not well. I hope they can bring them to justice.
