Snowmobilers' Heaven Is Hell on Wildlife

By JOE BARRETT
Wall Street Journal

FORT ATKINSON, Wis. -- More than two dozen people die on snowmobiles each year in Wisconsin, but the talk of this season isn't the damage riders do to themselves -- it's the havoc they wreak on wildlife.

Authorities in Fort Atkinson, Wis., aren't sure whether one or more snowmobilers meant to kill 62 ducks huddling under a bridge over the Rock River, but they are counting on a $10,000 reward to bring them in.

Three men were arrested a few hours north of here in Waupaca County last month for allegedly using their snowmobiles to terrorize and kill five deer. Another man in Fond du Lac turned himself in after killing more than 50 ducks as he zoomed over open water in a maneuver called "water skipping." And authorities near Holmen in the western part of the state are trying to decide whether a man who ran over a deer with his snowmobile on Jan. 31 violated any wildlife regulations.

"I don't remember a year like this," said Gary Eddy, snowmobile-safety administrator for the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. "I'm not sure what is really going on."

Here in this town of 12,000 straddling the Rock River east of Madison, authorities are trying to find the rider or riders who killed 62 ducks over two nights in late January as they nestled together in open water beneath the Main Street Bridge.

(More here.)