Crossbow Kills Coon - Death by Darts - $5K Reward

A $5,000 reward is being offered for information leading to the arrest and conviction of whoever used a crossbow to shoot and kill a raccoon in West Oakland. The 15-pound animal was found stumbling in the parking lot of a church at 10th and Center streets on Sunday, according to the Animal Legal Defense Fund of Cotati. Someone had shot it with five aluminum bolt darts. Good samaritans took video of the wounded raccoon. “What do we do about him in this moment?” one of them is heard asking in the footage. The group brought the raccoon to WildCare, an urban wildlife hospital in Marin, where medical staff removed four high-impact darts from soft tissue and a fifth from its skull. That injury was not survivable, and so the raccoon was euthanized to end its suffering. The freshness of the wounds indicated that the animal had been attacked relatively close to the church, officials said...more

As the friend who sent me this item said, "In most places outside the Bay Area, this would simply be regarded as roadkill."

And notice the words and phrases used:  the animal was "attacked", has "wounds" to "soft tissue", the injuries were "traumatic and malicious", its not a vet's office but an "urban wildlife hospital" with "medical staff."  All right out of the animal rights playbook.