I am an animal lover and everything but I think it may have been taken a little too far! Tripp Isenhour has been charged with cruelty towards animals for hitting a hawk with a golf ball and killing it. Supposedly he was on the golf course and was being filmed for "Shoot like a Pro" and there was an extremely loud hawk 300 yards away and he tried to scare it off. 300 yards was too far but as soon as it got to around 75 yards away he tried again and got lucky. They found the bird dead with blood coming out of it's nose.
Isenhour said that he never thought he could actually hit it and was just trying to scare it, so that it would fly away and they could tape. He said that it was basically like a joke. He also stated that he is a huge animal lover and his family has adopted three cats in the past. He apologized and stated that he never intended to harm the bird.
So should he be punished? The maximum penalty can be up to 14 months in jail and $1500 in fines. I think that this is going over the limit. I believe there is a big difference in cruelty to animals, in which you torture or abuse helpless animals, and hitting a bird with a golf ball, with quite a bit of luck. I seriously wonder if he ever thought he could hit it in the first place and he obviously stated that he didn't think he could.
Some will feel very strongly about this opinion and believe that if he killed the bird that he should be punished but I personally feel that it's a stretch on animal cruelty. I feel as though, as long as he realizes that what he did was wrong and he won't do it in the future then he should be able to donate money to PITA and move on. People should realize that he wasn't torturing a helpless animal, he was trying to scare it away and instead got a terrible dose of bad luck.
Jail time seems a bit harsh for killing a bird. I don't think he meant to hit the bird; that seems like a Happy Gilmore shot to me. It is certainly unfortunate, but I wonder if it would even be an issue had it not been a celebrity doing the bird slaying.