Leave Them Pups Alone!
I think this is kinda bogus.
The guy's getting hammered by the feds for trying to help out a seal pup. Sure, it might not have been the smartest thing to do. Not so much because of the law, but because people often take what they think are abandoned baby animals when the animal might not have been abandoned at all.
Seems to me this is another one of those cases where the situation got out of hand with the feds investigating it and then literally making a federal case out of it when they should have just dropped the whole thing.
They can't do that, though, can they? They're from the government and they're here to help you. Right?
Let's just hope all they do to the guy is give him a symbolic slap on the wrist.
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I actually caught a seal pup myself years ago. It was back in the late '70s, I believe.I used to go fishing now and then on the sea wall outside the outflow canal of the Humboldt Bay Power Plant. It was a good place to catch serf perch.
I was fishing there one day with a friend, Don Mckenna, with not much action with the fishing, and this seal pup came swimming by all by itself.
It was just off the rocks and kept swimming back and forth. We got the impression it was looking for a place to crawl up out of the water and lay down.
So I get up and step down a couple rocks and get close to the water. The pup keeps swimming back and forth, just barely out of reach. There was a rock just about a foot under water between me and the pup so I stepped on it, getting my boot all wet but placing me right near the seal.
I reached down and snagged it. It didn't struggle or anything, just flapping his arm flaps a bit. Didn't seem at all scared. It felt like a short haired "real" puppy, but all wet.
I brought it back up to where I'd been sitting and placed it on a flat rock next to me. It didn't seem interested in laying down and immediately started crawling back towards the water. I picked it up and put it back on the rock and it kept trying to crawl back to the water- a somewhat precarious situation I'd put it in since it was a rough enough traverse even for humans there on the sea wall.
Eventually it actually made it off the rock and fell to the one below it. OUCH! That must have hurt.
He made his point. I picked him up and put him back in the water. He slowly paddled his way out towards the center of the bay and we eventually lost sight of him.
Good thing I didn't try and take him home. I could have got in trouble.
posted by Fred Mangels @ 8:12 AM
30 comments
30 Comments:
What Ive read of this- sounds crazy.
The guy sounds like he was trying to help the little guy, and perhaps he might have. Maybe mom was nearby, maybe not. The seafloor is littered with miles and miles of nets, garbage, fishing line, and lots more things that snag creatures all the time and kill them.
But to have this guy raked across the coals when our county is full of REAL animal abusers seems insane.
Agreed. One of those things where the situation takes on a life of its own.
Rumor on the streets is, he tried to use the seal to get some chips at the VIP club.
In this PC nightmare of a world if you don't spay or neuter a dog or cat your a crimminal. If your an illegal you can't be asked for documentation. So why shouldn't we prosecute this dunb dude for playing with a seal pup. If he was dumping speed residue nobody would give a shit.
Apparently not enough citizens are up to speed on jury nullification.
"Jury nullification is a reminder that the right to trial by one's peers affords the public an opportunity to take a dissenting view about the justness of a statute or official practices."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_nullification
If it worked for O.J. why not for a good samaratan?
I'm willing to consider mandatory spay laws, but only after the animal rights nuts like Shannon Miranda are locked in the cages for a week with the vicious pit bulls they protect.
I don't think it was a wise decision to take the seal pup to the casino and let people pet it.
The Wonderful World of Disney this is not. Gone are the days of 'Ring of Bright Water,' of being allowed to love and care about animals outside of movies and zoos. Taking the pup probably wasn't the smartest move, (how do you feed it, for example?) but I agree with you, Fred. This is bogus.
"I'm willing to consider mandatory spay laws, but only after the animal rights nuts like Shannon Miranda are locked in the cages for a week with the vicious pit bulls they protect."
Spay the federal government, then Shannon Miranda!!!
A whole new class of criminals was created today when they passed that state spay and neuter bill. Innocent pet owners changed overnight into criminals.
Innocent pet owners who get their kicks by watching their pets porkin all day. Yeah right.
Where do you come up with that?
I cannot believe what I just read.
You 'people' now have some problem with Shannon Miranda? What kind of sick $^%$ ARE you?
Fine. You hate animals. Great. What a wonderful addition to this planet (& this discussion) you are.
You need to get help, you really should.
Thank you Rose for pointing out that people who break a recently enacted law will now, in fact, be criminals. I'm sure a lot of murderers lamented that if they had only killed their victims the day before Moses came down from the mountain with those stone tablets that they wouldn't be damned in the eyes of God. Laws suck, huh?
I'm sure you'd be saying the same thing if the new law put everyone with a joint in the joint. With the stroke of a pen, one day all the people who were guilty of speeding at 60 and 65 mph became innocent. Today the State Assembly seeks to make all people with pets who aren't spayed into criminals, calling anyone who has a litter of kittens or puppies a "backyard breeder" - oh it sounds so much more vile when youput it that way. It's all in the name of good.
If you have Petco stock, sell it. If your kid was planning to go to Davis to be a Veterinarian, better tell 'em to change their plans. There won't be any pets left to treat.
Let's not get too excited.
Remember, this was the State Assembly. Sure, the Senate is likely sure to follow suit, but who knows.
Besides, the Governator might end up vetoing the bill.
A few ignorant hicks in Humboldt county aren't going to prevent decent mainstream California society from advancing civilization's progress by limiting the number of euthanized animals. All you animal breeders can move to the hills above Honeydew or Hyampom and breed all the animals and retarded childen you want in your backyards.
Stop Pet Porkin!
Mighty "progressive" of ya, 6:27. Whooo-ee.
5:18 get a grip. If you want to make a point worthy of discussion you'll have to do much better. Are you capeable or just a fanatic?
ΛΕΟΝΙΔΑΣ, another time I have to agree with you. What is the world comming to?
I would like to point everyone to the
Fully Informed Jury site.
Know your rights!
Back to the seal pup for a moment (haha- excuse me as I hijack the thread...back to where it started)... I would have sympathy for this guy who was "rescuing" the seal pup, except the first stop he made with it was Bear River Casino. And then to a friend's house, where they told him that they were calling the authorities. Even if he was truly ignorant as to the severity of taking the pup off the beach, and he was really trying to help it, he should have found a phone and called somebody. I'm sure that 911 dispatch would have put him in touch with the Marine Mammal center... It's taking the pup and then driving around and showing it off to all his buddy's, before someone else called it in, that makes me a big suspicious of his motives.
I agree with you monica and carol. Ignorance of the law does not excuse an infraction. I don't think it is really appropriate for the judge to throw the book at him but he needs to take responsibility for his actions. Also the message to others needs to be made here. Leave wild animals alone, because you could easily hurt them or be hurt yourself.
To the backyard porkin' commenter: WTF are you saying? That everyone who doesn't spay or neuter their pets is doing it to watch them have sex?
That is just messed up. It takes a sick mind to come up with that
"When I see these dogs with their nuts hanging out, it annoys me," as quoted in the SF Chron this am.
The appropriate thing for the fellow to do would have been to leave the pup where he found it, then report it to the appropriate authorities.
Concur with 2:33. The guy should at least do some community service for his stupid actions.
You'd feel better if he snuck the pup back to his house and kept it in a dark room? telling his firends what he found is somehow a bad thing?
I don't know the case, maybe he did something to hurt the parent. Certainly it is a bad idea to take a pup away from the beach where its parent may be either a short distance away, or just hunting for food to bring back to the pup.
But a year in prison and a fine of $20,000?
“The problem is,” Sanders said, “there is not an exception for trying to save the life of a pup and the problem with that law is that it kind of goes against human nature in trying to help animals in distress and what one would expect the law to be.”
This fellow isn't a bad guy just a dumb f#*k. To bad he doesn't have Paris Hiltons money,he'd be a hero. The real scary part of the story is how goofie our perspective on crime has become. After the manditory spay/neuter laws we'll all be in for it.
As a responsible pet owner I look forward to a stong spay/neuter law. A lot of people seem to think that owning a pet is a right. It's a privilege and with privileges come responsiblities.
9:24 you may not be a commie but you sure are buying the party line sledge hammer,star and syckle. You just might sing a different tune when the bowzier bridgade brakes into your home uninvited. This is not a law for responsible pet owners. This is a law to outlaw ownership. Sorry commrad we aren't buying.
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