A Palmyra Township road crew spent much of Tuesday afternoon pulling the remains of three dead sheep out of Waymire Creek.

On Monday, workers removed a dead calf from the creekbed.

“Our stomachs can only take so much of this in a day,” said Debbie Bowman, one of the crew’s three workers.

Law enforcement officials suspect the animals died somewhere else and were thrown over the bridge that crosses Waymire Creek, also known as Wymore Creek.

“It appears to be an illegal dumping,” said Lt. Kathy Tate, spokeswoman for the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office.

“We have no suspects at this time,” Tate said, adding the incident is under investigation.

David Murphy, director of Kansas Riverkeeper, a 250-member group affiliated with the National Water Keeper Alliance, reported the carcasses in the creek Saturday after responding to a tip from Richard Rodewald, a nearby landowner.

Donning hipwaders and rubber gloves, Murphy helped the township workers remove the carcasses Tuesday.

“Whoever did this is just about the lowest kind of person there is,” Murphy said, a minute after loading a full-grown sheep into a cargo net that Bowman had lowered into the deep ravine.

“This isn’t just an act against the environment, it’s an act against people,” he said. “Whoever did this just doesn’t care about anybody else.”

Because the animals had not been butchered, Murphy assumed they were diseased.

“Whatever they died from  and worse  is now in the creek from this point on,” he said.

Waymire Creek flows into Captain Creek, which flows into the Kansas River. Palmyra Township is in the southeast corner of Douglas County.

Murphy said the animals’ owner should have called a rendering company.

“But that would have cost them something,” Murphy said. “This way’s cheaper, unless they get caught.”

Anyone with information about the carcasses is encouraged to call the Sheriff’s Office at 841-0007.