A man convicted and fined for animal cruelty has declined to reveal the identity of another man he filmed horrifically stabbing a deer in Victoria's Gippsland region.
The Gippsland man was last week fined $4000 for multiple animal cruelty offences, included using guinea pigs as live bait to train his hunting dogs, tormenting a fox cub and illegally hunting hog deer.
In a statement on Wednesday, Victoria's Conservation Regulator said he was spared jail because of his "ill-health".
Its authorised officers uncovered evidence of his cruel acts on the man's phone as part of a native wildlife investigation last year.
They also found footage of another man stabbing and beating a sambar deer in Gippsland in 2019, leaving it with "horrific injuries".
The convicted man did not reveal the attacker's identity, although admitted to the other offences and was charged and convicted over six breaches of animal cruelty, wildlife and catchment and land protection laws.
It is illegal to wound, mutilate, torture, abuse or beat an animal in Victoria, and the Conservation Regulator has vowed to keep hunting the deer basher.
"While this case doesn't directly relate to native wildlife, our investigation uncovered these cruel acts towards deer, guinea pigs and foxes," Gippsland senior forest and wildlife officer Glenn Lineham said.
"It is never acceptable to abuse an animal and we are committed to bringing offenders to justice."
