A Lancaster County sportsmen's club charged with animal cruelty after a turkey shoot will fight the charges in court, a club official says.
"We have retained attorneys and we have every confidence we're going to win this," Mark Giovengo, a board member of the 2,000-member Elstonville Sportsmen's Association on Pinch Road in Rapho Township, said Tuesday.
The case is garnering worldwide attention and is being viewed in some quarters an an animal rights versus hunting rights showdown.
Last week, a local humane officer with the New York-based animal-protection group Farm Sanctuary brought charges based on a Sept. 9 event at the club in which adults and youths
allegedly shot arrows at live turkeys tethered to hay bales.
Keith Mohler, of Mountville, said he was called to the turkey shoot by a disgusted club member. Mohler said that after witnessing turkeys being shot and wounded, he called state police.
The event was shut down and Mohler filed four counts of "cruel ill treatment" and four counts of offering live animals as prizes in a contest.
State law prohibits the use of live animals as prizes, except fish, Mohler said.
In an interview this week, Mohler said the turkeys were not killed humanely.
"None of the ones I saw shot were killed instantly," he said. "They all flapped and squawked."
The club's Giovengo called the charges "propaganda" and "inaccurate at best."
A hearing on the charges is expected to be set soon before Magisterial District Judge John C. Winters, according to Christie Wilson, an assistant district attorney with the Lancaster County District Attorney's Office.
The case has been widely reported in the media, with stories appearing on CNN and in newspapers from England to Taiwan.
An employee of Farm Sanctuary, Mohler was appointed by the Lancaster County Court of Common Pleas to enforce crime codes that deal with cruelty to animals.