Combining two of Wisconsin’s favorite pastimes – whitetail deer and snowmobiles – to achieve horrible, near-unforgivable results, some unidentified, probably drunk, definitely stupid people near Waupaca used snowmobiles to herd some deer, run them down, and then basically torture them to death. They even tied a deer to a tree and left it there – it choked itself to death. Wow. How insane and bored do you need to be to feel like this is OK – or even fun? What’s going on in rural America? From the Leader-Telegram:

• No arrests have been made in the Saturday morning incident about five miles south of Waupaca, said Ted Dremel, a state Department of Natural Resources warden.
• There's talk of closing all snowmobile trails in Waupaca County until the "rogue snowmobilers" are caught, he said.
• "It is senseless. I don't know how else to describe it," Dremel said. "It is probably something they thought was fun or humorous at the time. They did purposely run over these deer. The tracks in the snow were in a circular manner, almost looking like they were chasing the deer back to other snowmobile partners."

Some private landowners in the area have shut down the trails on their land. That’s too bad, and not fair to most snowmobilers. I know it’s easy to scoff at this and say “idiots” and (for some people) even laugh at these rednecks, but seriously – what happens to people around here that produces this kind of behavior?