Couple feels pressure after publicizing hunter killed dogs

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An Aylmer-area woman whose dogs were shot and killed last month by a coyote hunter said she and her husband are being pressured to stop talking publicly about their pets’ deaths.

Kaitlin Strong said since posting to social media about the killing of their German shepherds – nine-year-old Mary Jane and three-year-old Hank – near their rural home near Aylmer in February, she and her husband Robert Jordan have received messages Strong feels are intended to silence the pair.

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“We’ve had a lot of people from Aylmer, specifically from the Aylmer Facebook page, reach out to me, either in DMs (direct messages) or in comments, and try to shut us up,” Strong said.

Strong said she could “only speculate” as to why anyone would want her to refrain from posting publicly, but felt it was possible those who’ve messaged her either know someone who was present when her dogs were killed, are protecting someone who may have been present or possibly are “engaged in their own illegal hunting activity.”

Strong said the couple continues to post about the deaths of Mary Jane and Hank to raise public awareness and to “move on.

“(We’re trying) to make something good out of this, to educate the public, prevent these kinds of things from happening in the future, because it all comes down to people reporting it,” Strong said.

But not all the messages received by Strong and Jordan have been intimidating.

In a post to Facebook on Saturday, Strong attached images of messages she has received, including witness accounts and other landowners who said they’d felt threatened by hunters, such as an instance where “animal body parts” were left in a person’s mailbox.

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“So many people (have) reached out to us to tell us that they’ve had run-ins with hunters who were threatening them or just trespassing and running their dogs through their land and just behaving poorly,” Strong said.

However, Strong also noted “many good hunters” have assisted the couple as they try to figure out what happened to their dogs, and “expressed disgust in the actions of the entire group involved in the killing of half our family.”

Strong also feels keeping the story in the public eye would put pressure on the Ministry of Natural Resources – the agency investigating the dogs’ deaths – to interview witnesses, which she felt hadn’t occurred.

On Tuesday, a spokesperson for the ministry said they couldn’t comment because the “matter still remains under investigation.”

On Feb. 8, Strong let her two dogs out at about 1:15 p.m. and heard a gunshot about 15 minutes later, she previously told The Free Press.

Strong tracked their footprints through a wooded area to an open field near a creek and found blood-soaked snow and marks in the snow from an animal being dragged.

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The couple contacted the Ministry of Natural Resources, who began an investigation, and told her on Feb. 11 they’d located the dead dogs and the shooter.

Strong said a group of hunters was tracking coyotes with binoculars and dogs toward Imperial Road between Wilson Line and Crossley Hunter Line, and the person who shot and killed Mary Jane and Hank mistook the dogs for coyotes, which she felt was inaccurate and conflicting with “physical and witness evidence.”

“We’re crushed,” Strong said. “I’m still not even back at work. This is the worst thing that has ever happened to us. We lost half of our family that day.”

bwilliams@postmedia.com

@BrianWatLFPress

The Local Journalism Initiative is funded by the Government of Canada

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