Within days, there were two fatal hunting dog shootings in neighboring counties in Virginia. But the incidents appear unrelated.
The first incident occurred on Friday, December 29 in King and Queen County. According to Virginia’s Department of Wildlife Resources (DWR), three hunting dogs were found shot on a property off of Indian Neck Rd.
Robbie Shackleford, board member of the Newtown Sportsman Association in King and Queen County told ABC 8News “it was cold-blooded.”
“It was a horrific act, an act of animal cruelty. I’d even say it was a hate crime toward dog hunting.” He said he was there to witness the removal of the dogs, and it was “extremely graphic.”
DWR confirmed that they launched an investigation. Several days later, on January 2, charges were filed against Eric Gregory Ripper, the property owner where the dogs were found the department confirmed. He is charged with three counts of felony animal cruelty and two misdemeanors for removing the dogs’ electronic collars.
Essex County Shooting
In Essex County, on January 1, three hunting dogs were shot on Laurel Rd., DWR also confirmed.
The dogs’ owner, Jamie Clark, told 12 On Your Side, the three dogs were trailing a deer. He heard over 15 or 16 gunshots and saw on the GPS that one of the collars stopped moving. Clark said when him and his father went to look for the dogs they found blood and the buckle from a collar in the woods. They also found two of the dogs collars on fire in a burn barrel.
Clark told 12 On Your Side the landowner admitted he shot the dogs. Afterward, “We walked back into the woods where I suspected they were and we found [two of] them buried with dirt over them, pine straw thrown over it to conceal where they were,” he said. One of the dogs survived and is recovering.
DWR corroborated Clark’s account the dogs were shot, two were buried, and their collars were burnt. According to the department, the property owner who shot the dogs claimed they attacked his “animals.”
On January 7, Thomas Egon Bohlmann, was charged with 2 counts of animal cruelty, 2 counts of removing tracking collars from a dog, and 2 counts of destruction of property.
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