The the Iowa DNR has confirmed the name of a girl who was killed in a hunting accident Saturday in Tama County. DNR spokesman, Joe Wilkinson, says county officials got the call at 7:40 A.M. “The investigation continues into it, but there was a group of three people that were preparing to set out to hunt in the muzzleloader season on Saturday morning when one of the muzzleloaders discharged ,” Wilkinson says. “The bullet struck the victim, in this case, a 12-year-old girl.”
The girl was identified as Liesel Casto of Traer. Casto was preparing to hunt with her parents. Wilkinson says these types of guns were used before the modern day type weapons. “A muzzleloader rifle is loaded one projectile, one bullet at a time and it can not be reloaded until that bullet is fired or removed and put back in again,” Wilkinson says. Wilkinson says he does not know the exact details of what happened in Casto’s death and the DNR is working the Tama County to piece that together.
He says the advice for muzzleloaders is the same as for any other weapon. “Treat it safely and make sure that it is pointed in the right direction and what we always try to tell people, is whenever that firearm is around, be aware of what the background is,” Wilkinson says.
Wilkinson says the deer season has been relatively safe thus far as this is the first hunting death in this hunting season. “It kind of continues a trend that we’ve had the last 10 to 12 years of zero to one or two fatalities, which is well down from years past,” Wilkinson says. “But again, any fatality or any injury is a tragedy.” The Waterloo Courier reports Casto’s parents, Joshua and Joie Casto, own and operate Casto Armory, which is a gun and gunsmith shop.