NATCHEZ — Adams County Sheriff’s Offices deputies said they are investigating the shooting deaths of two dogs found Saturday morning in a ditch on the side of Kingston Road.

“From the investigation, someone witnessed an individual dumping dogs from the back of pickup truck,” said Lt. Cal Green, spokesperson for the Adams County Sheriff’s Office.

Green said one of the dogs was a full-sized tan Labrador retriever mix and the other was a brown and white medium-sized dog.

After discovering the dogs’ bodies, Green said, investigators went to a nearby hunting camp where investigators said they found blood and one of the dog’s collars on an all-terrain vehicle.

Investigators said no one was present at the hunting camp and no arrests had been made in the case as Wednesday afternoon.

Green said sheriff’s investigators are working with the district attorney’s office to determine if the shooting deaths could be charged as felonies under animal cruelty laws that were strengthened by the Mississippi Legislature earlier this year in response to a dog fighting ring discovered in Adams County in 2017.

Green said sheriff’s officials also are working to determine if each dog killing could be charged as a separate felony.

Investigators, Green said, believe the dogs could have been killed by a hunter who believed the dogs were interfering with their hunt, and if so, the killings would not be justified and would be subject to the stiffer animal cruelty laws.