Man shoots trio of deer blinded by light in ‘crime of opportunity,’ Oregon officials say
A man is accused of shooting and killing deer while they were “easy targets” after being blinded by an artificial light, Oregon wildlife officials said.
The three black-tailed bucks, discovered March 23, were shot and left to rot on North Spit in Coos Bay, a Dec. 21 news release from the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife said. The animals were killed while black-tailed deer hunting season was closed.
“It was a crime of opportunity,” Sergeant Levi Harris said in the release. “We believe the shooter drove around a corner, saw the deer in the headlights and made a poor, shocking, impromptu decision to hop out and shoot those deer.”
During the weekend of March 19, the 21-year-old is accused of shooting each deer in the head “from relatively close range,” the department said.
“The deer, likely transfixed by the light, would have been easy targets,” the release said.
As such, the man had enough time “to aim and drop each deer individually,” which would not happen in a typical hunting scenario when a single shot would scare off the other deer, wildlife officials said.
“Because the deer were found so close together, investigators believed early on that the poacher had used a spotlight or vehicle headlights to blind the deer,” the release said.
A Coos Bay man was riding his ATV when he discovered the deer dead after noticing “crows congregating in the area,” the release said.
“As soon as I came around the corner, there they were, and if it had been dark, they would have been standing right in front of my headlights on the hillside,” the man said, according to wildlife officials.
The 21-year-old was cited Dec. 5 in connection to hunting with the aid of artificial light, three counts of taking game mammal closed season and three counts of waste of a game mammal for poaching three black-tailed bucks and leaving them to waste, the department said.
Authorities are seeking $3,000 in restitution, a minimum three-year hunting suspension and the forfeiture of the man’s rifle, the release said.
Coos Bay is about 115 miles southwest of Eugene.
This story was originally published December 22, 2022 at 5:32 PM with the headline "Man shoots trio of deer blinded by light in ‘crime of opportunity,’ Oregon officials say."
