Two dead rodents lead to firings
Protected species: Townsend’s chipmunks found impaled on nails at work site
JEREMY PAWLOSKI; The Olympian |
LACEY – Animal Services is investigating two construction workers who might have used nail guns to impale two Townsend’s chipmunks at a job site in the 8000 block of 28th Court near Hawks Prairie, killing the animals.
Townsend’s chipmunks are on a list of protected species under Washington law, Animal Services director Susanne Beauregard said. Killing animals on such a list is a misdemeanor.
Greg Bailey, the owner and contractor for the construction project on 28th Court, said he fired the two subcontractors after he confronted them Wednesday and they admitted to shooting the chipmunks with nail guns. He said the two men were doing framing work at the site.
“I can’t even believe they did it,” Bailey said. “I’m just appalled.”
The wife of one of the suspects, who identified the other suspect as her nephew, said the chipmunks were pests and chewed up the job site.
“This is a pest issue,” said the woman, who would only be identified by her first name, Teresa.
“We love animals,” she said. “I am a total animal lover.”
Teresa said it hurts her family to lose the income from the construction job.
“Shooting them with a nail gun is not the way to go,” she said. “This was a very bad decision. It doesn’t look to me like this was the only option available.”
Most construction workers know not to inhumanely kill animals at job sites, Beauregard said.
She said it is her understanding that the chipmunks became pests after some construction workers began feeding them. It appears that trees in the area were cut down to make room for the construction site.
Bailey learned of the impaled chipmunks the same way The Olympian did: Someone noticed the dead animals abandoned at the job site, then took photos of them and anonymously sent them out to media, to Bailey’s construction firm, BGC, and to Animal Services.
“I am appalled at this conduct and in no way does BGC or anyone in our company, personally or professionally condone this behavior,” Bailey wrote in an e-mail.
Beauregard said an Animal Control officer was interviewing one of the suspects Wednesday. Both suspects have been identified, she said. She said both are young men. Animal-cruelty charges might be referred to the Thurston County prosecutor, she said.
The dead chipmunks have been recovered, and though it appears they were alive when they were shot, a necropsy will be performed on both animals to definitively determine their cause of death, Beauregard said.
Jeremy Pawloski: 360-754-5465
3 comments:
Back in the 1930's we put away pesty chipmunks, striped gophers, and pocket gophers in a New York minute (but in the Midwest)..... in fact, we used to get a penny for every pocket gopher we killed!
Now we have to pay a fine if we kill them??
some people today pay thousands of dollars in order to try to have a human baby,. Others pay thousands of dollars to kill them before they are born.!
what a krazy kountry! .. H.A.H.
only a kook could tie this into abortion, but that is what anti- people are like. i DO fail to see how a poison peanut or any other method is more 'humane' than a nail gun - jeeze - our neighbor's CAT hunts and torments them before killing them and that is NATURAL - it was kinda dumb of them to arrogantly leave them up on display but still - who hasn't wanted to kill the raccoons raiding the garbage and put them on display for their friends - even tho other raccoons are truly not capable of getting the message, we do humanize. but this was on incident of over reaction and not some flagrant damnation of all of society. can't you people ever just point out a stupid isolated incident without making it some general condemnation of someone? yeah, i just did it to you to make a point, so don't go all nuts bout that. in general environmentalists have done a good thing for the nation tho there is, like in everything, some going overboard. in general, animal rights people have gone a good thing for this nation, like eliminating UNNECCESARY animal testing and getting it only used where truly needed, and so there is SOME going overboard too, but there is in EVERYTHING. kooks who try to get prayer are going overboard because kids don't need it in school, they can pray silently any where and any time they want with now extra laws formalizing it. so let's not damn the environmentalists or the animal rights people for this and treat it like the one time thing it is of taking things too far, and maybe lets write a letter on they guys' behalf with some reason in it, not gross general accusations, okay?
and let's not spell workd with a k that don't really start with a k. some of us HATE that.
to second anonymous: so you hate it when people spell crazy with a 'k' and country with a 'k'? You know what? I hate it when you think it is 'natural' for a kat to toy around with a chipmunk or a mouse... but it's like 1st degree murder to get rid of a pesky plant-destroying chipmunk by trapping him/her to death??
man, get a life! teach your Kat not to 'torment' poor little mice and chipmunks! .
.... sent by just another krazy kounty kid.
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