A SENSELESS killing of a beloved pet alpaca has a local family searching for answers to their grief as police investigate.
Alan and Kim Sturzaker found their 15-year-old pet ‘Honey’ fatally shot on their Rose River property on Sunday morning, November 10.
It occurred at around 2am, when the couple woke up to the sound of a gunshot in the distance.
Mr Sturzaker said hunters and spot lighters regularly frequent the area, many whom he knows, and didn’t think much of the sound.
“We get a lot of poachers up that way and we hear shots on a regular basis,” he said.
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The pair went about their Sunday morning as any other day, until they received a phone call from a nearby resident.
The caller said he had seen a heavily modified black Isuzu D-Max ute stop near the Sturzaker’s paddock fence, turn off their spotlights and fire off a single gunshot at the time the Sturzakers were awakened.
Ms Sturzaker investigated the site of the gunshot to find Honey had been brutally killed.
“We’re really saddened by it, we picked that animal out when the kids were little and they’ve grown up with it,” Mr Sturzaker said.
“It’s a really senseless slaughter of an animal that didn’t deserve it.
“It’s always tough to bury a pet, it’s terrible.”
Honey the alpaca was one of two siblings the Sturzkaer family bought some 15 years ago, with Honey’s brother, Snow, having passed away around 10 years ago after being run over by a car while the family were living in Bundalong.
Mr Sturzaker said Honey was “enjoying retirement” at their weekend home at Rose River and loved hanging out with the cattle on the farm.
“Little Honey was just a gorgeous little boy, we’d have fun catching him and cheering him, he was always good,” he said.
“It’s a beautiful location out there, beautiful grassy paddocks… he had a great life and he could’ve lived another five or 10 years longer.”
Mr Sturzaker said Honey was buried by the river, where the family will plant an oak tree to grow in his memory.
Mr Sturzaker said police had begun investigations on Sunday, going on site to determine tyre tracks and vantage points.
Mr Sturzaker said he appealed to anyone with information about the incident or caught the spotted vehicle on camera to come forward to police.
“We want to get to the bottom of this, find these people and bring a bit of justice to them,” he said.
Mr Sturzaker said the incident places an unfair reputation on hunters around the area.
“There’s quite a lot of legitimately good hunters around there who get permission to hunt on land and generally speaking we’ve relationships with people who call in, ask and are respectful to our land,” he said.
“It’s these guys who just rock up and start shooting off the roads, which is highly illegal.
“It puts a tarnish on everyone that’s hunting, it’s not fair to the legitimate guys and it’s not fair to us landowners who have to deal with this stuff.”
Anyone with information can call the Whitfield Police Station on (03) 5729 8282 or Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.
