Drama struck Livingston Parish, Louisiana on Dec. 29 when a sport warden watched a recognized heroin distributor and thief illegally shoot a whitetail doe. Chad Blythe of Satsuma, Louisiana emerged from his house and shot a whitetail, nicknamed “Butterbean,” with a .22 rimfire rifle in the course of the neighborhood. He did so with out realizing his neighbors, their youngsters, and a Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries officer had been all watching him.
According to neighbor and witness Patt LeBlanc, a 35-year-old vitality conservation specialist and father of two, the doe was thought of a “neighborhood pet.” Residents repeatedly fed and performed along with her. She wore an orange collar round her neck and spent quite a lot of time in a playhouse in a neighbor’s yard. An LDWF officer arrived that day to take her to a penned facility, however whereas ready on a wildlife biologist to assist with the seize, Blythe shot her in the course of the road. The shot didn’t kill the deer, however an officer needed to euthanize her shortly thereafter.
“The bullet hit my mom’s house,” LeBlanc tells Outdoor Life. “She lives directly across the street.”
LeBlanc’s children had been outdoors when the incident occurred. He’s a deer hunter and mentioned the youngsters are used to being round lifeless deer, however this was totally different.
“The kids were pretty upset,” LeBlanc says. “They were like ‘Why did he shoot Butterbean? Butterbean was friendly!’ It got to them a little bit, but we explained that Butterbean is a deer and it is deer season, and not everybody knows Butterbean is tame. That was pretty much the only way we could put it to the kids.”
LeBlanc remembers the officer instantly leaping in his truck and shifting it into the poacher’s driveway. He approached Blythe and issued three tickets. Blythe was cited for looking with out fundamental looking and deer looking licenses, looking with out a deer tag, and looking throughout a public street. Hunting with out the requisite licenses and tags may value Blythe $350 for every cost. He may additionally face a $500 superb and 90 days in jail for looking throughout a public street. Civil restitution for the substitute worth of the misplaced deer may whole as much as $1,624. The Livingston Parish Sheriff’s Office has but to file additional prices.
LeBlanc thinks Blythe ought to face extra punishment for the reckless act. LeBlanc says Blythe’s rimfire rifle was an unlawful deer looking weapon, in accordance with state regulation. His habits may also meet the usual for criminally negligent discharge of a firearm, seeing as how the stray bullet struck somebody’s house.
This was not Blythe’s first run-in with the regulation. He pled no contest to felony theft prices in January 2021 and was sentenced to 5 years in a detention facility. That sentence was suspended and he was given three years of probation as a substitute, which he’s presumably nonetheless serving. He is at present needed in adjoining Ascension Parish for distribution of heroin after a massive narcotics bust in February 2022, the Narcotics Unit of the Ascension Parish Sheriff’s Office confirmed with Outdoor Life.