Huge Fine and Possible Jail for Rescuing Baby Bird
Under rule by progressive statists, most everything that isn’t mandatory is forbidden. Saving baby woodpeckers isn’t yet required by law, consequently…
Eleven-year-old aspiring veterinarian, Skylar Capo, sprang into action the second she learned that a baby woodpecker in her Dad’s backyard was about to be eaten by the family cat.
“I’ve just always loved animals,” said Skylar Capo. “I couldn’t stand to watch it be eaten.”
Skylar couldn’t find the woodpecker’s mother, so she brought it to her own mother, Alison Capo, who agreed to take it home.
“She was just going to take care of it for a day or two, make sure it was safe and uninjured, and then she was going to let it go,” said Capo.
That was before they happened into a lady from the US Fish and Wildlife Service, who announced that the woodpecker is a protected species. Therefore, it is against federal law to transport a baby woodpecker, Tenth Amendment notwithstanding.
So as soon as the Capo family returned home, they say they opened the cage, the bird flew away, and they reported it to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
“They said that’s great, that’s exactly what we want to see,” said Capo. “We thought that we had done everything that we could possibly do.”
But roughly two weeks later, that same woman from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service showed up at Capo’s front door. This time, Capo says the woman was accompanied by a state trooper. Capo refused to accept a citation, but was later mailed a notice to appear in U.S. District Court for unlawfully taking a migratory bird. She’s also been slapped with a $535 fine.
“I feel harassed and I feel angry,” said Capo.
“Kids should be able to save a baby bird and not end up going home crying because their mom has to pay $535. I just think that’s crazy,” said Skylar.
9NEWS NOW has tried repeatedly to contact the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. So far, they have not returned any of our calls. If convicted, Capo could face up to a year behind bars.
That’s the price of allowing liberals to fundamentally transform the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave into the Burrow of the Bureaucrats.
On a tip from GoY.
This isn’t new. I lived in PA and was warned by my sister about this one. You can’t help just about any wild animal without butting up against these insane laws.
The time for MASSIVE CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE is upon us….
Hi,I’m from the government and I’m here to Crush you, confiscate your wealth, and condition you to accept government abuse of every form and description….
…problem is, civil disobedience on your part will be an excuse for them to react…uncivily, as you admit in the second part of your post.
Next time just stomp on it.
For this, we paid $14 Trillion?
(Thanks for the tip).
This reminds me of the time Conservative Hero Ollie North smuggled cocaine to Woody Woodpecker to get all of Toontown addicted to crack as part of a CIA conspiracy.
You would be hard pressed to find ANY species of bird that isn’t “protected” by US fish & wildlife. You can go to their website and they have a list posted. EVERYTHING is on that list – from the common sparrow to crows. I had great horned owls nest in my backyard tree last year. They shed feathers all the time. Technically it is illegal for me to pick up a shed feather from my backyard and take into the house! A local gallery got busted by USFW for displaying a native American head piece adorned with crow feathers. Pigeons are protected!
The rule of thumb is…if it lives outside you have no right to interact with it.
LOL Dr. Dave, I’ve probably got 25-30 hawk feathers, they leave ‘em around like business cards over here.
Publish that stupid US Fish and Wildlife Service agent’s name and picture! She is exactly what tyrannies depend on. Low level, low thinking, turds who get off by throwing around whatever little weight they have. She is a bureaucratic bully who has NO business being employed by a democratic government.
Same thing happened to me when my wife made the mistake of picking up a baby hummingbird that had fallen out of its nest and had been abandoned by its mother.
Shoot, shovel, shut up.
I have rescued birds from my dogs several times and each time that has happened – I felt that God led me to that place to rescue the bird just in the nick of time.
I will always listen to God before I listen to these lying hypocrites in our current government of no-justice.
This reminds me of the time when twoofseeker and his fellow tree-toppers, Compton police officer Perrodin and Compton Treasurer Sanders forged the signature of a dead lady on a grant deed and stole her house, then used the stolen money to buy more rock cocaine and sold it for a profit to his little brother’s friends. He then blamed his little brother’s overdose on whitey and it somehow made him feel better.
Why is every thread turning into a bizarre coke conspiracy? Is Eric back?
Sickness. What our country has evolved into. Let terrorists walk across our borders, imprison legal citizens for saving a baby bird.
No, AC. We’ve got a troll from the hood who is a smart ass.
A bible verse I never understood until recently….”the compassion of the wicked is cruel.”
To quote “Star Trek”‘s Dr. McCoy: “The bureaucratic mentality is the only constant in the universe”.
Common sense need not apply.
The comments over there are as outraged as we are. The dept ended up cancelling the ticket and actually apologizing. These govt bureaucrats have to learn that we’re entering a new era.
What Mrs. Capo needs is one of our vicious, jewish, NYC lawyers. True, that they’re all leftists, but it might be enough to scare this useless govt. agency.
Dr. Dave
Around here is the rule of thumb, if you see an eagle hanging around the tallest tree on your property for more than 24 hours, that is the tree for this winter’s firewood. The most unwelcome guest being an eagle’s nest.
Ah, that law of unintended consequences.
This is why we have a the second amendment.
Dang, strike-thru tag did not work on “a” before “the”.
Boy this realy fuffles my feathers the way the stupid turkeys at the U.S. FISH & WILDLIFE SERVICE could be so irresponsible Maybe this is one goverment agency that needs to ether be disbanded or in need of more common sense persons
A very silly situation. But it looks like the Fish and Wildlife is now canceling all charges and fines. I wonder if they would have canceled without the publicity?
First of all they have issued a statement that the citation was withdrawn immediately and then improperly processed anyway. It was a mistake and they have apologized.
If the little girl is really interested in protecting wildlife this was a teaching moment. Just because she couldn’t see the mother doesn’t mean it wasn’t nearby. In a similar case in my own yard with a pre-flight crow on the ground, I simply chased the cat away. Within seconds a mob of adults crows made sure the cat was at least three yards away.
Who do we fine for the wholesale slaughter of flocks of birds by green energy wind mills?
Only two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former.
If you think the US Fish and Wildlife Service is bad, just take a trip the Social Security ofice and try to get something done.
[...] (h/t: Moonbattery) [...]
My favorite bumper sticker is so profound!…”JUSTICE IS…OF the lawyers, BY the lawyers, and FOR the lawyers!” So very true in our greedy and crooked society! If you think the Fish & Wildlife is incompetent, you should try working with the Corps of Engineers!
Well lets call this a teaching moment. What was taught to the girl is to NEVER tell any one what you’re doing even if its right because, no good deed goes unpunished. Class Dismissed.
More likely, they covered their asses after the negative publicity and pleaded incompetence rather than malice.
I wonder if they would have canceled without the publicity?
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I doubt it. The best thing to do is shine the light of publicity on this kind of crap. Public embarrassment is one of the few things they understand.
How can we save ourselves from this sort of incompetence and petty tyranny on the part of our government bureaucrats? Make government smaller, much, much smaller, and take away all but essential funding. Where government flourishes, liberty dies…
Should the Fish and Wildlife Services have “field agents” with police powers? Should the FWS even exist? Is this $14 Trillion Police State we’ve built really what we wanted?
A couple of years ago, my neighbor called in a state of panic. She had honey bees in her chimney and one of her liberal friends told her she would either have to learn to live with them or sell the house, because they were “protected and rightfully so.” Apparently the so-called friend gave her a veiled threat that she would turn in anybody that tried to kill honey bees. Since my neighbor was alergic, she was tetering on hysterics. I told her to put an open quart jar of gasoline in the fireplace, cover the opening with plastic and let the fumes drive them away. The next week she gave me $100 in movie passes.
This world has gone insane.
Yes, this world has gone insane – it’s called political correctness or multiculturalism, the insanity of no thinking and no common-sense.
That person deserves a congradulations for saving the bird instead of this Its just as bad as this framer who was charged with killing a grizzliebear that attacked him he was almost forced to pay a $8000 fine over this luckly the charges were all dismissed despite objections from the eco-freaks
Politicians Lie! This is the only True Political FACT.
Who Pays Tax’s MEGA corps pay with Your Money(pe-on’s)
Who Pays Tax’s Billionaire’s Use (PE-ON’s) money.
Who Pay’s Treasure Bill’s (Pe-on’s) Politicans can Pay more bills with Peon’s Money.