Wisconsin Wildlife Federation seeks cruelty charges against alleged snow machine “hunters”

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2010:
(Actual press date November 3.)

APPLETON–Asking that felony animal cruelty charges be
reinstated against three men who admitted to running down six deer
with snow machines on January 9, 2009 near Lind, Wisconsin, the
Wisconsin Wildlife Federation and attorney Michael J. Cain contend
in a friend-of-the-court brief filed in mid-October 2010 with the
Wisconsin Fourth District Court of Appeals that two Waupaca County
judges erred in holding that the men could not be charged with
cruelty because the state Department of Nat-ural Resources charged
them with game law violations.

Explained Appelton Post-Crescent staff writer John Lee, “The
judges ruled that if the men are cited with violating the state’s
hunting laws, which explicitly exempt hunters from animal
mistreatment charges, then the animal mistreatment charges cannot be
pursued.”
The Wisconsin Wildlife Federation joined the case at request
of the three-judge appellate panel.
Testified Cain, “The alleged acts of the defendants are
relatively unique and far distant from actions that most citizens and
arguably the Legislature would consider ‘hunting.'”
The law exempting hunters from cruelty charges should
pertain, Cain continued, “only in situations when they are in full
compliance with the state hunting regulations,” whereas defendants
Nicholas Hermes and Rory and Robby Kuenzi killed deer with vehicles
rather than approved weapons, killed them at night, did not have
hunting licenses, did not tag the deer they killed, and failed to
register the deer.
Rory Kuenzi, 25, of Weyauwega, was in March 2009 sentenced
to serve two years in prison for beating his girlfriend in 2005. He
was on probation at the time of the deer killings.
Rory Kuenzi in October 2004 was released on $10,000 bond
pending charges in a fatal hit-and-run accident. Charges were never
filed, Waupaca County District Attorney John Snider told
Post-Crescent staff writer Dan Wilson, due to investigative
procedural errors.