Canadian driver jailed for deaths caused by stopping for ducks

OTTAWA (Reuters) - A Canadian woman was sentenced to 90 days in jail on Thursday for causing two deaths in 2010 when she stopped her car on a Quebec highway to help a group of ducklings crossing the road.

Emma Czornobaj had been convicted in June of two counts each of criminal negligence and dangerous driving causing death.

According to media reports on Thursday, Czornobaj stopped her car abruptly in the passing lane of a highway south of Montreal when she saw the ducklings. The motorcycle behind Czornobaj's car then crashed into her vehicle, killing the 50-year-old man driving the motorcycle and his 16-year-old daughter.

"I just wanted to pick all these ducklings up and put them in my car," Czornobaj had testified during her trial. "I know it was a mistake."

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Prison terms and hefty fines for criminal gang smuggling birds of prey

Black kites linked the UK to a European-wide trade in wild-caught birds with forged papers

Following a lengthy trial at Ghent in Belgium, five people have been convicted of being part of a criminal organisation engaged in forging and falsifying permits and documents required to possess and trade in endangered species and for possessing rare birds of prey, reports the National Wildlife Crime Unit (NWCU). 

The investigation by the Belgian Federal Police, which lasted in excess of six years, resulted in enforcement action in five countries, including search warrants being executed in the UK by the police and NWCU. 

The four men and one woman were part of a criminal gang that were acquiring some of the rarest birds of prey from the wild and then passing them off as having been bred in captivity by using falsified and forged permits.

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Swedish and British egg collectors jailed after RSPB investigation

Birdwatch News Archive

Posted on: 03 Feb 2014

An criminal enquiry which started in Britain in 2009 has led to the conviction of three Swedish egg collectors last week.

The 23-day trial in the province of Ångermanland, central Sweden, resulted in the jailing of one of the men for a year.

In February 2009, a collection of over 2,000 birds’ eggs was seized by police in Co Durham and examined by RSPB investigators. Associated documentation including around 6,000 emails showed that the chief suspect was involved in exchanging birds’ eggs with a ring of people in England, Scotland, Sweden, the United States and Australia. Andrew Seed, of Low Willington, Co Durham, was convicted in December 2009 for keeping, trading and smuggling birds’ eggs, and subsequently received a suspended jail sentence.

http://www.birdwatch.co.uk/channel/newsitem.asp?c=11&cate=__15130

Birdbrain gets six months for stabbing parrot to death with a fork

A Washington man will spend six months in prison for killing his girlfriend's pet parrot. 

A Washington man will spend six months in prison for stabbing his girlfriend’s parrot to death with a fork, a court ruled.

In a sentencing hearing on Tuesday, a defense lawyer said that Richard J. Atkinson, 63, of Everett, north of Seattle, was blacked out drunk and didn’t remember attacking the bird at the couple’s home in August, the Herald Newspaper reported.

Atkinson mixed whiskey with anti-anxiety medication before stabbing the bird with a serving fork and then trashing his gal’s belongings, his lawyer said.

"He felt horrible," defense lawyer William Steffener said.

Atkinson pleaded guilty to animal cruelty and domestic violence charges last month.

Superior Court Judge George Appel slammed Atkinson as “depraved” and “barbaric,” and ordered him to undergo psychiatric treatment as well as pay for his girlfriend’s trashed belongings, thenewspaper reported.

The bird killer is also barred from coming in contact with any pets for five years.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/6-months-killing-bird-article-1.1209526#ixzz2Dcqvjtgq