Troy Lee Gentry Shoots Tame Bear on Video
Troy Lee Gentry, a country singer who sings songs about what a real man he is, paid to kill a tame bear and film it to prentend that it was in the wild.
Troy Lee Gentry, of the country singing duo Montgomery Gentry, has been accused of killing a tame black bear that federal officials say he tagged as killed in the wild.
Gentry, 39, of Franklin, Tennessee, and Lee Marvin Greenly, 46, of Sandstone, appeared Tuesday before U.S. Magistrate Judge Raymond Erickson in connection with a sealed indictment returned by a federal grand jury in Minneapolis.
Authorities allege that Gentry purchased the bear from Greenly, a wildlife photographer and hunting guide, then killed it with a bow and arrow in an enclosed pen on Greenly’s property in October 2004. The government alleges that Gentry and Greenly tagged the bear with a Minnesota hunting license and registered the animal with the state Department of Natural Resources as a wild kill. Gentry allegedly paid about $4,650 for the bear, named Cubby. The bear’s death was videotaped, and the tape later edited so Gentry appeared to shoot the animal in a “fair chase” hunting situation, the government alleges.
Pathetic.
via Mark Frauenfelder, who points to an appropriate song
The opening stanza is rather ironic in this context:
Put me on a mountain, way back in the back woods
Put me on a lake with a biggin’ on the line
Put me ’round a campfire cookin’ something I just cleaned
You do your thing, I’ll do mine
Although not as much as this one:
And I sure know the difference between wrong and right
You know, to me it’s all just common sense
A broken rule, a consequence
Sounds ’bout right.
If Troy Lee Gentry any sense, he could have done it legal.
I’ve known several legal guides (bear and cat) who would scorn their clients for expecting to be lead to trophys, or worse, have the trophys lead to the client. They learned to be a bit more inquisitive when signing up to guide. “You want the trophy, you have to work for it.”
They weren’t nearly as circumspect when guiding for deer or elk – if the client was only interested in the trophy, the guide would get the meat. (and when their sub-zero filled up, their friends would benefit – no waste)
I heard a little about this over the weekend. I’m sad it turned about to be true. What a shame. It’s sad somebody who can be involved with the great song cited above could do something so stupid and classless. Just sad.
Interesting that the article fails to explain what law might have been broken here, since the defendant claims innocence. While I personally do not agree with such hunting, there are many states where hunting penned animals on a ‘preserve’ is prefectly legal.
I question what ‘tame’ means, too. Did this bear grow up on a farm, or did it do tricks with hula-hoops? How many acres in an ‘enclosed pen’?
Before we lynch this guy, I would like to hear more about the facts.
Who cares–its a BEAR for crying out loud. Its good to see the politically-correct animal rights folk out in force.
I am sure the animal rights nuts at PETA would be proud.
so the charge was not for killing it, but for lying about it and misusing the tag? did he eat it? he should have taped some antlers on a cow and shot it! cheaper and tastier![lol]
I don’t know if I find the story or the video more disturbing.
I wonder if the drug dealer he beat with a baseball bat in front of his kids (while they waited in his gi-normous idling chevy suburban) was captive, too (just borrowed him from the local jail…)
The song seems to say “live and let live – don’t judge me and I won’t judge you” but he seems to be judging an awful lot of people…
And what’s the deal with MLKs image? Is he saying he was a great man, or a “whiner” like the protesters – he was against the war, afterall…