BRAD HORN/Nevada Appeal Jack Foerschler inspects his dead ram on Friday. The animal was shot near his home and dragged to the edge of his ranch.
There's no doubt in Jack Foerschler's mind that someone is out to get him. Or at least out to get his sheep.
Friday morning - for the third time in as many weeks - he discovered that someone had come onto his property along the Carson River and shot and killed one of his sheep. This time they got his only ram, a staple to his sheep-breeding business.
"You work so hard to keep them alive and for this to happen, it's just awful," he said.
Foerschler is not paranoid. He lives three miles from Snyder Avenue along a dirt road and on a dead-end where signs warn that you are on private property.
His home for the last 20 years has been in a pristine pasture with all the beauty Nevada has to offer concentrated in his spot against the hills.
There's no way to accidentally happen upon Foerschler's 15 acres, he said. No way to see his sheep grazing and decide at that moment to shoot one.
He said there's no way to accidentally be shooting at something else and hit one of the sheep. And if the shootings were an accident, how would you explain two sheep and a ram shot in the neck, each a week apart?
"I've never had a sheep shot," said Foerschler who's raised ovine for the last 20 years.
"Somebody is shooting them on purpose."
He reported each of the incidents to police, and after Friday morning's initial discovery of the body, Foerschler noted something else.
It appeared from trails in the dirt that whomever killed the ram, shot it in its pen then dragged its 200-pound carcass to the fence line. A large pool of blood found in the middle suggests that's where the shooter stopped for a rest.
"They wanted us to think they were being shot near the fence," Foerschler guessed. "They were all found along the fence."
He said he's never heard a gun shot nor a vehicle coming onto his property. Sheep are generally quiet except perhaps when they are hungry, he said.
A sheep is not an animal that would make a good sentry.
The Sheriff's Department is looking into the matter, and Foerschler has some ideas that it may be revenge from a recent court case.
He doesn't know what to say to whomever is committing these felonies.
"What do you tell those kind of people? They don't care what you say anyway," he said. "I'm trying to keep myself from getting too upset, you can't help but be mad."
• Contact reporter F.T. Norton at ftnorton@nevadaappeal.com or 881-1213.
YOU CAN HELP
If you have any information on this crime call the Carson City Sheriff's Department's detective division at 887-2020, ext. 41400.