King County Killing Field: Part II
By: Mitch Carr
Updated: January 25, 2010
The incident happened near Guthrie, Texas. It's about an hour and a half car ride east from Lubbock. On a ranch there in King County, a man shot and killed 51 buffalo that had wandered off one ranch and onto another. Their owner, Wayne Kirk, says what has happened is a tragedy and a travesty.
"The reason that they were shot is I think...I don't know. I don't know why someone could shoot that many of those wonderful creatures and leave them laying there for them to rot," Kirk said.
According to Kirk, animals get through fences and on to other ranches all the time. It's not right to just shoot them when they wander off the ranch.
"It's basically what would I say the rule of the West, that if somebody's cattle or animals get onto your property you simply call them, come get them, and basically try and keep them from getting out," Kirk said.
Wayne kirk is angry with what happened. He's angry not only because he lost a quarter of a million dollars worth of animals, but also because all that meat could've been put to good use.
"It's inhumane. It's a terrible waste. We could help a lot of kids if we would decide to harvest those buffalos and butcher them. We could have fed a lot of Haitians. We could have fed a lot of orphanges here in Texas with that meat," Kirk said.
Now he wants help from the attorney general, Governor Perry and anyone else who can keep this from ever happening again.
"They're not like a rattlesnake where you should just be able to go shoot them. They're not endangering anybody. They're a wonderful animal and right now we need to get some legislation in Texas that produces that, that can give us the protection for these type animals," Kirk said.
