from todays paper:
Three teenagers men responsible for shining and shooting a pair of albino buck yearlings outside a farmhouse in Buffalo County were fined more than $16,000.
The trio drove around Buffalo County with a spotlight and high-powered rifle on July 22, shining deer in fields and taking turns firing on them.
More than a dozen deer were killed or wounded in what Buffalo County Circuit Judge Dane Morey described as a stupid act that now casts a horrible light on the shooters.
Jordan R. Hoesley, 18, of Arcadia, Wis., Charles M. Klein, 18, of Galesville, Wis., and Jordan M. Papenfuss, 18, of Trempealeau, Wis., pleaded guilty to two counts of killing protected white deer, shooting deer during the closed season, shooting deer with aid of a spotlight and discharging a firearm from a highway.
Morey fined each man $5,565, revoked their hunting and fishing rights for three years and ordered them to spend 45 days in jail with work or school release privileges starting Jan. 5.
Hoesley, a first-year technical college student at Marshfield, Wis., was forced to give up his car, a 1996 Saturn, and the high-powered rifle and spotlight used in the shootings.
Conservation wardens Robert Jumbeck and John Collison said the three men took turns firing a rifle at deer shined from country roadways.
The twin albino bucks were shot down in a soybean field just outside a house along Hwy. 88 in Praag, Wis., in the Buffalo County town of Lincoln around 2:20 a.m. July 22.
Neighboring landowners said they fed the white deer, treated them like pets and often had visitors drop by to watch and photograph the rare albinos.
One of the landowners, James Wick, told the court that losing the white deer was like having someone come by and shoot your dog or cat.
Wick said his little granddaughter could get up close to the deer and feed them. It was tough finding an answer when she asked why someone would shoot the albinos, he said.
Klein, Papenfuss and Hoesley told Morey they were sorry for what happened. Klein, a freshman in college, said they weren’t thinking and made a poor decision.
Papenfuss, a senior in high school, said he wanted the public to know he was “very sorry.”
And Hoesley, who wants to become a teacher, apologized with “strong regret” for the “stupid thing we did that night.”
Morey instructed all three to write apology letters to the public; they are to be published in Buffalo County newspapers within 30 days.
