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As hunting seasons open nationwide, please make sure you're actually shooting animals

As hunting seasons open nationwide, please make sure you're actually shooting animals
Posted at 10:35 AM, Nov 27, 2017
and last updated 2017-11-27 10:35:31-05

It's been a rough week for hunters nationwide. 

A woman was fatally shot by a hunter in western New York, and, in an unrelated incident just a few miles away, an Ohio man shot a pickup truck he'd confused for a deer.

Several hundred miles away in Waukesha County, Wisconsin, a camouflaged duck hunter was shot and injured by a deer hunter on Sunday.

RELATED: Ohio Division of Wildlife demonstrates pressure-canning, smoking venison at free workshop

Police said 43-year-old Rosemary Billquist was shot and killed Wednesday night in Sherman, New York, by a man who thought she was a deer. Billquist had taken her two Labrador retrievers for a walk when her neighbor, Thomas B. Jadlowski, thought he saw a deer in a field and fired a single-shot pistol at her, The New York Times reports.

“It’s been a tough few days,” said Rosemary's husband, Jamie Billquist, 47. “It just saddens me because it’s something that could have been avoided."

Billquist told The Times he is not a hunter but added that “not knowing what you’re shooting at when you think you’re shooting a deer, it boggles my mind.”

Jadlowski fired his weapon after sunset, which is illegal in New York. No charges have been filed yet, and Jadlowski is cooperating with authorities, The Times reports.

Two days after Billquist's shooting, Marvin Miller of Middlefield, Ohio, fired a high-powered rifle at a pickup truck at about 11:30 a.m. Friday in North Harmony, New York. 

After being arrested on charges of reckless endangerment, Miller told police that he'd somehow mistaken it for a deer. The sheriff's office told The Post-Journal of Jamestown that the bullet disabled the vehicle by lodging in the truck's engine compartment.

Across the midwest in Wisconsin, an ambulance had to be towed away after it crashing into a pole while carrying an injured duck hunter to the hospital.

Witnesses told Milwaukee-based TMJ4 that the incident appeared accidental. Information on the injured hunter's condition was not immediately available.