A commercial fisherman in Panama City shot a bottlenorth dolphin and fed it poisonous fish after a federal prosecutor in Florida said the federal protected species caught by his client was “irritated.”
Zachary Brandon Barfield, now 31, is sentenced to 30 days in prison for killing dolphins in 2022 and 2023 and poisoning them with toxic pesticides in 2023, according to a news release Friday from the U.S. Lawyer’s Office for the Northern District of Florida. The judge also ordered a fine of $51,000.
Barfield, whose court’s firename spelled “Zachary” in harming the dolphins, harmed the Gulf of Mexico waters by polluting the ecosystem with Metmir, a pesticide used to poison marine mammals for months, prosecutors said.
Adam Gustafson, deputy aide for the Department of Justice’s Environment and Natural Resources Department, said in a statement, “Long-standing Charter and Commercial Fishing Captain Barfield knew about the “regulations to protect dolphins,” but he killed them in front of the children anyway.”
Barfield’s criminal defense attorney, Nathan Robert Prince, did not immediately return a McClatch News request for comment Friday.
Bottlenorth Dolphins are protected by the Marine Mammal Protection Act and the federal insecticide, fungicide and rodent suicide laws.
Barfield violated both laws during a charter fishing trip, prosecutors said.
He first poisoned dolphins in the summer of 2022. Prosecutors said they saw him eat a red snapper “from a charter fishing client’s line.”
According to prosecutors, Barfield put methomir inside the baitfish and fed dolphins on the boat. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has restrictions on using metomyl, which can affect the nervous system of dolphins, humans, and other mammals.
The Southeastern Regional Office of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration wrote in a May 12 statement filed in the Barfield incident that the pesticide “is painful and induces suffering in mammals such as bottlenorth dolphins.”
“How fast and how slowly an animal dies will depend heavily on the dosage administered,” NOAA said.
According to NOAA, although it is not considered endangered or threatened in the US, Bottlen North Dolphins are considered “vulnerable” to a variety of “stressers,” including some that have been caused by people. Human-related risks to the species include boat strikes, commercial and recreational fishing, and “illegal feeding and harassment.”
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Prosecutors said Barfield recognized that pesticides were dangerous not only to dolphins and other creatures, but also to the surrounding environment.
As captain of the December 2022 and summer 2023 fishing trip, Barfield grabbed a 12-gauge shotgun after seeing dolphins feeding on snappers that accompany client fishing line, prosecutors said.
In both cases, prosecutors said Barfield shot the dolphin.
One Bottlen North Dolphin died instantly, according to the US law firm.
Barfield also shot dolphins, but “we didn’t kill them right away,” prosecutors said, including when he traveled on a boat with two young children from elementary school.
On another trip, he fired dolphins with more than 12 fishermen on a boat, prosecutors said.
Barfield was sentenced to prison for three counts of addiction and dolphin shooting in violation of federal law, according to a one-year supervised release, the U.S. Attorneys’ Office said.
He pleaded guilty to the charges, court documents show.
US lawyer Michelle Spaven called Barfield’s actions “selfish” and denounced them as “serious crimes against public resources, threats to local ecosystems, and catastrophic harm to highly intelligent and charismatic species.”
