Vandals attack animals at petting zoo

While changing the water for her peacocks last week, petting zoo owner Rena Kirk received an unpleasant surprise. She discovered one of her peacock’s legs floating in the poultry waterer.\n“Someone would have had to go into my privacy fence, into the peacock cage which is large, taken the lid off to put the leg inside and then put the top back on,” Kirk said.\nIt was not the first attack on one of Kirk’s animals, but was by far the most severe, she said. For more than a year and a half, acts of vandalism have been going on at Barnyard Friends, her Bloomington petting zoo. \n“We didn’t realize what was going on at the time, until it was consistent,” Kirk said.\nThe 14-acre “educational frontier” is home to a variety of exotic breeds, including goats, several breeds of fiber sheep, a lama, a camel, miniature horses and others, Kirk said. She has owned the farm, which is located on East State Road 46, with her husband Dan Kirk for almost 10 years. \nThe same day as the peacock incident, Kirk also found her bunny dead in its cage at her house. She suspects the bunny was poisoned. Two weeks prior to the bunny’s death, the hinges on its cage were turned, so she knew someone was in the cage, she said. \nKirk also said someone spray-painted a derogatory message about her across her fence.\nWith each act of vandalism Kirk and her husband realized that someone was tampering with the farm, so they started making police reports, she said. The Monroe County Sheriff’s Department is patrolling the area for extra security, she said, and the Kirk’s have installed video cameras on their property.\nKirk said that she is confident they are dealing with a juvenile. Kirk said on July 5, 2006 someone got into the back door of her gallery, took a rake and pried the doors open to release her red golden pheasant from its cage. She said that weeks later the pheasant was seen at a neighbor’s residence and was unable to be caught. This past spring, she received a call from Brown County State Park to tell her that the pheasant was sighted on the grounds. Unfortunately, she was never able to catch the pheasant because they are very “flighty.” \n“I’m scared to death for my animals,” Kirk said.\nLaurie Ringquist, director of Bloomington Animal Care and Control, said that animal abuse to this extent is not very common in Monroe County. She said that mostly her department receives calls about neglect.\nKirk believes that a local juvenile is responsible for the attacks on the animals, since she said one was caught on the property previously. She said she suspects that the juvenile who was caught has a friend who has been helping with the vandalism. \n“We take this really seriously,” Kirk said. “If there is a juvenile or a parents who has any information about what has been happening, contact the Monroe County Sheriff’s Department.”\nKirk described her recent experiences as “traumatizing.” She said she wants the people responsible to “quit or be prosecuted.”\nThe Monroe County Sheriff’s Department did not return calls by press time.