Some state legislators are eager to make it a felony to cruelly kill a wild animal, although a spokesman for the state’s Department of Environmental Conservation said such acts are rare.

The Assembly bill has gained momentum after Albany County Sheriff Craig Apple posted a photo of a bludgeoned porcupine on social media last week.

Rick Georgeson, spokesman for Region 4 of the DEC, said that cases of aggravated cruelty toward wildlife were, as far as he knew, rare. He could not think of any others.

Apple told The Enterprise that he first received a letter from a woman in Middleburgh last week, complaining that a group of teenagers was clubbing porcupines to death in her area. The next day, he received a  text message from a woman in Albany County, who sent a picture of a similarly clubbed porcupine that Apple said was lying at the intersection of Peasley Road and Bradt Hollow Road in South Berne.

Next to the dead animal was a club lying on the road, quills still embedded in it.

That animal brought the number of animals to about a dozen, Apple said.

He posted that photo on social media and began looking into what charges could be brought against the perpetrators. Apple hopes to bring charges of animal cruelty, under Agriculture and Markets Law 353; the charges would have a maximum penalty of $1,000 fine and three years’ probation.

“I hunt,” said Apple. “And I have no objection to someone putting an animal down humanely, but clubbing them and leaving them in the roadway to die a slow, miserable death is another thing altogether,” he said.

The sheriff suggests that these animals were killed “more for a joke than anything,” and calls that behavior “bizarre” and “sadistic,” asking, “What do you do when you get bored with this? Move on to domestic animals? Humans?”

He has already talked to one young person whom he says may be involved, and expects to “make some arrests,” he said, adding that his office is currently building a case against the perpetrators.

Since the perpetrators been named or arrested, The Enterprise could not tell their side of the story.

These animals may turn out to be the catalyst for a modification of Buster’s Law that would make it a felony to cruelly and sadistically torture, injure, or kill wildlife.

Because of Buster’s Law, passed in 1999, aggravated cruelty toward companion animals is a felony. The law was named for a cat doused in kerosene and set on fire in Schenectady in 1997. The then-teenager convicted of killing Buster went on to plead guilty in 2008 to sexually abusing a mentally disabled 12-year-old girl.

An amendment currently before the state assembly, A-957, would simply add wildlife to the scope of the animals protected  under Buster’s Law.

Buster’s Law was written to amend Ag and Markets Law 353 to make it a felony, rather than a misdemeanor, to kill a companion animal cruelly and sadistically.

Buster’s Law, 353-a, reads in part, “... a person is guilty of aggravated cruelty to animals when, with no justifiable purpose, he or she intentionally kills or intentionally causes serious physical injury to a companion animal with aggravated cruelty.” It defines “aggravated cruelty” as an action intended to cause extreme physical pain or done in an especially depraved or sadistic manner.

Ag and Markets Law 353 makes it illegal to “cruelly beat or unjustifiably injure, maim, mutilate, or kill” any animal, including wild animals. But under this law, this conduct is only a class A misdemeanor, not a felony. The maximum penalty that could be given for this charge is  a $1,000 fine and three years’ probation.

The maximum penalty for a conviction under Buster’s Law is two years’ imprisonment and a $5,000 fine, and the maximum penalty under the proposed wildlife amendment would be the same.

If passed, the new law would make it a felony to unjustifiably and sadistically torture wildlife, including even the category of so-called “nuisance animals,” into which porcupines fall. Assemblyman John T. McDonald III (Democrat, 108th District), a sponsor of the bill, said the amendment would allow for felony charges against those who senselessly beat or otherwise injure or kill “animals that are basically defenseless.”

The bill specifically states that it would not interfere in any way with lawful hunting, trapping or fishing; dispatch of rabid or diseased animals; or scientific testing performed on animals.

Assemblyman James Tedisco (Republican, 112th District), the original sponsor of Buster’s Law, commented that it is certainly legal to “dispatch a nuisance animal when you have to,” but said about the recent spate of porcupine killings that “This was not that.”

Tedisco pointed out, “These porcupines were not a nuisance at the time.” They were in a wild area of a field, a wooded area, he said. There was no need to kill them, and it appears, he said, that it was done “for fun and games.” If there is a potential to make this kind of act a felony, Tedisco said, he wouldn’t be opposed.

“This was savage, it was brutal, it was cruel,” he continued. “It’s totally inappropriate. This is what the FBI has classified as an indicator of individuals who will go on to hurt people. It is a bridge crime,” he said, referring to the type of crime that leads to violence against people.

“This is a public safety issue, this type of savagery to any animal,” said Tedisco. “To think this is fun is really tragic.”

Assemblywoman Patricia Fahy (Democrat, 109th district) plans to become a sponsor of A-957. “This may be a porcupine — not exactly everyone’s warm and fuzzy favorite — but when you see this kind of depravity, what’s next?” she asked The Enterprise.

This bill, introduced in January 2015 by Assemblywoman Linda B. Rosenthal (Democrat, District 67) of Manhattan and currently sitting in the Code Committee, may get a boost from the local porcupine killings, according to McDonald.

“Acts like this may help us to move the bill this legislative session,” the assemblyman wrote on a post about the incident on Sheriff Apple’s Facebook page.