SALT LAKE CITY (ABC4) – Two men discovered a field of carcasses near their property. It was just the beginning.
Upon closer inspection, they soon learned there was more than just dead sheep on their neighbor’s property.
Tony Canterberry said it’s not the first time he’s seen a grisly sight like the one he found this week.
“The owner of the property, he doesn’t care,” said Canterberry. “And it’s sad.”
He called the scene disgusting and troubling. Canterberry lives in Sanpete County, near the owner of these sheep. Canterberry became concerned when he got closer and took several images of the animals.
A friend was with him as well. Being a rancher himself, Jared Jensen didn’t like what he saw.
“I just about fell off the chair,” he said. “I’ve never seen deaths in my life that did not need to happen. I’ve seen sheep eating the wool off of other sheep. There’s about 40 carcasses laying out there and just barely starting to rot.”
An image captured by Canteberry showed the wool nearly gone from one of the sheep. He said he threw alfalfa into the pen because they were starving and some landed on the backs of the sheep. Sheep searched for the alfalfa hidden in the wool and began tearing it off to reach the alfalfa.
“It made me sick,” he said. “I’ve told this guy to get his sheep vaccinated. I’ve told him they’ve got worms and he just kept ignoring it.
What concerns Canterberry is the owner may be taking contaminated meat to Salt Lake to sell. He claimed the owner has a small store in the county.
“One of the sheep had maggots,” he said. “He just cut out the part where maggots had been and eaten on and cut the meat up and put it in the store.”
Canterberry said he came across at least a dozen dead lambs and there were many carcasses scattered throughout the area.
“That’s how the owner of the property leaves them,” he said. “Wherever they fall, they fall.”
The location of the sheep pens is in Sanpete County near Canyon View Drive and Oakridge Drive. According to the two men, the Department of Agriculture and the sheriff’s office have been notified.
“This is just something that I saw that needed to be dealt with,” Jensen said. “We’ll let the law do what the law needs to do.”
Attempts to reach Sanpete County and the Department of Agriculture were unsuccessful.
The men could only provide the last name of the owner and ABC4 was not successful in finding him.
