A Wisconsin farmer is in serious trouble after getting caught for killing over 150 deer over the course of two years. He committed his slayings from 2020 to 2021.
Now, he's been sentenced to four months in jail as well as three years of probation. He's also banned from hunting and fishing for 42 years. The farmer is facing $27,416 in fines.
Investigators caught wind of Dominick R. Stanek's kills when his neighbors alerted the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources about his activities, according to Meat Eater. Although he had an agricultural damage permit to kill deer, the farmer's kills didn't adhere to those regulations. Initially, investigators slapped him with four citations in 2019 over killing a deer.
They urged him to work with hunters to legally reduce the herd on his property. However, he instead closed his property instead to hunters. After that, neighbors reported gunshots on his property. From Jan. 1, 2020, through Dec. 31, 2021, the Wisconsin farmer racked up 27 citations. Richland County District Attorney Jennifer Harper said Stanek's "primary method of take was to shoot deer with the hopes they would run off and later die in the woods and not in the fields."
Wisconsin Farmer Found Guilty
Apparently, the farmer would then allow the animal he shot to bleed out without trying to put it out of its misery. That's how game wardens stumbled across the remains of an animal that the farmer killed. DNR warden Kirk Konichek said, "(Stanek) took the skull and antlers from some of the bigger bucks, but he mostly left everything lying where it fell to rot."
He also said that he had not come across a "guilty party show such a complete lack of remorse for their blatant disregard of a natural resource." The farmer wrote the distance he was shooting the deer from on the shell casings.
"That took it a step above anything I'd ever seen before, and made it clear that he had made a game out of it," Konichek said.
Additionally, officials found other dead animals on the property such as opossum and raccoons. Apparently, the farmer had used bowls of poison to kill livestock on his property. "(The Staneks) tried to eliminate anything that might eat their crops," Konichek said. "The poison really worried us. We didn't want predatory birds eating animals that were poisoned."
Ultimately, Stanek pled guilty 14 of the 27 counts.
"(Dominick Stanek) thinks he should be able to do whatever he wants because it's his land," Konichek said. "He made his rounds almost like clockwork, and shot wherever he saw a deer, whether it had antlers or not. Surveillance wasn't easy because we had to keep our people safe, and it was hard to keep eyes on him because of the terrain, woods, and cornfields. We worked that case every night possible, but the stars must align to get what we need for a strong case."
