Two American foxhounds are dead after a Marine military police officer shot them in North Carolina’s Croatan National Forest. Corporal Jeremy Ryan Edge claims they were disrupting his hunt and that handling the situation this way is legal in his home state of Tennessee, but it’s not — in either state. He was taken into police custody Monday after shooting the two foxhounds Saturday, with a combined eight charges — four per dog — to his name.
Matthew Eaton of Jones County, North Carolina, said he found his dogs dead in Croatan while they were out tracking.
“I had just gotten one of them and had a lot of high hopes for him because we do a lot of competition hunting and I thought he was going to be a really good one,” Eaton told WITN. “The female we raised and we had a litter of puppies off of her and we had her since she was born and she was the last one of that blood line we had and it’s hard to find that kind of bloodline anymore.”
The collars were cut off of the dogs’ bodies and hidden nearby under mud and water.
Corporal Jeremy Ryan Edge. (Photo via WNCT)
Deputies with the Jones County Sheriff’s Office were assisted by NCIS, the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission, and the Base Provost Marshal’s Office in their investigation. Corporal Edge was up front about the shootings, admitting he did it because it is legal to do so in his home state of Tennessee under the same circumstances. It’s illegal to hunt with dogs in Tennessee, but it is not legal to shoot dogs that are.
Regardless, eastern North Carolina, including the area Corporal Edge was hunting, does allow dog hunting.
Corporal Edge was arrested Monday and appeared in court Tuesday. He was charged with two counts of felony cruelty to animals, two counts of misdemeanor larceny, two counts of misdemeanor injury to personal property, and two counts of misdemeanor removal of an electronic tracking collar. His secured bond was set at $20,000.
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