Endangered Key Deer Dead After Selfie Seeker Stuffs three Animals in Car

July six 2017 12:00 AM EDT

Two studs are being held in a Florida jail after they tied up three Key deer and wedged them in the back seat and trunk of a vehicle over the 4th of July weekend, resulting in the death of one of the endangered animals, police say.

“Erik lured the Key deer close with lumps of bread , grabbed them, trussed their feet with ropes and put them in his car,” a Monroe County Sheriff’s report said.

Erik Damas Acosta, an 18-year-old from Miami Gardens, and a passenger in the car, Tamani Younge, 23, of Tamarac were both arrested on numerous charges after a sheriff’s deputy pulled the car over on Little Torch Key and witnessed a deer trussed in the backseat, WLRN reports.

“They had wounds all over their assets and head and were fighting to break free,” Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission Officer Clayton Wagner wrote in an arrest affidavit obtained by WLRN. “Blood was soaked into the seats and deer hair was strongly scattered across. We opened the trunk to find a third Key deer. This deer also had many wounds on its figure and head.”

Damas Acosta told wildlife officials that “he was going to take pictures with them,” and that he was “going to one of the bridges to camp,” the affidavit states.

In order to prevent further stress to the deer, all three were released back into the wild. The two female deer ran off, but the third, the buck who had been held in the trunk, eventually had to be euthanized due to a cracked gam.

Wildlife officials had been watching the buck for several days after it’s release and said “it was not doing well or making any improvements.”

“We wished to ease its ache and suffering as much as humanly possible ,” National Key Deer Refuge Manager Dan Clark told the Miami Herald. “It’s unfortunate and it had to be done to ease its ache and suffering.”

Key deer, a diminutive subspecies of the Virginia whitetail deer, become stressed very lightly during capture Clark told the Herald. The deer, which grow to about the size of a large dog, are found only in the Florida Keys, and the current population of six hundred to eight hundred deer is federally protected.

Damas Acosta and Junior have not been charged federally, the Herald said, but each faces the same twelve charges through the state: three felony counts of wounding a protected species; three misdemeanor counts for taking deer out of season; three misdemeanor counts of animal cruelty; and three misdemeanor FWC charges for illegal possession or taking of deer.

“We’re still waiting to find out from the federal side if they’ll be charged,” Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission Officer Robert Dube told the paper.

The state felonies are punishable by up to up to five years in jail and a fine of up to $Five,000.

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