Four alpacas have been shot dead with a rifle in a field in Cambridgeshire, police said.
The animals, called Calvin, Klein, Martha and Juniper, were attacked between 6pm on Saturday and 8:30am on Sunday in the parish of East Hatley, near Gamlingay.
A ewe was also attacked by a dog and had to be put down while another alpaca received a non-fatal gunshot wound to the face, according to their owner, Dawn French.
Officers from Cambridgeshire police have been carrying out house-to-house inquiries and are asking for witnesses or anyone with CCTV or dashcam footage from the area at the time to contact them.
Sgt Tom Nuttall, from Cambridgeshirepolice’s rural crime action team, said: “This was a highly distressing crime that has caused death and serious injury to defenceless animals.”
French has kept the herd of six alpacas and one ewe in a field rented from a farm for six years.
She told the BBC: “We got a phone call yesterday morning saying, ‘I think you need to come down here but be prepared, it’s not pretty.’
“We rushed down there and found four alpacas with shots to their heads, very very upsetting, very traumatic – just hideous.”
French said the ewe was so badly mauled by a dog it had to be put down, and the injured alpaca, Phoebe, was treated by a vet for a facial wound.
She said: “The bullet or shot has caught her on the side of her face and given her quite a nasty wound and paralysis – we’re hoping it’s just swelling and temporary and the nerve isn’t severed.”
