Big Sky Times

Jean Loyning, a rancher of Warren, a town in Montana, said she wondered why someone would kill an animal just standing there after three of her cows were found shot dead.

“I didn’t understand why anybody would do something like that," she said, according to KTVQ.

Loyning and her husband, Paul, were shocked after neighbors called about the cows Oct. 31. They have lived on their ranch at the base of the Pryor Mountains for decades and say every day brings something new. Their 18,000-acre property near the Montana-Wyoming border is their livelihood.

"I have been here my whole life," Paul said.

After the cows were shot, they were left for dead.

“Killed them for no reason, looks like. Didn’t get any meat," he said. 

Some of the Loynings' 600 head of cattle were grazing along Rail Bed Road among the wind turbines and a natural gas pipeline, where some men happened to be working.

“Some of them are workers who kind of, actually were there, near the scene, saw what was going on," Paul said. 

Witnesses said they saw a man in a Dodge Dakota driving up the dirt road that afternoon and shot two calves and a cow from inside his truck.

The Carbon County Sheriff’s Office said the case is currently under investigation and the shooter has yet to be identified. 

Though the loss of the animals will cost them about $5,000, the Loynings said it's the least of their worries.

The pair are worried that this wasn’t a one-off incident and that if the suspect isn’t caught, something much worse could happen.

“You can do something like this, you’re one step off of doing it to a human being, and that’s scary," Jean said.