Divers Probed for Giving Fish Champagne
Three Polish divers faced a police investigation Thursday for possible illegal fishing and animal abuse after a news photo showed them plying a freshly caught pike with champagne at an outdoor New Year's party."They may have committed offences of poaching and maltreating a fish," said Maria Niedziolka of the National Fishing Authority, which notified police of the incident.
The picture in Nowa Trybuna daily showed three frogmen neck-deep in a lake, with one of them tipping a bottle of cheap Russian bubbly into the fish's open mouth.
Nowa Trybuna Opolska/Reuters - Handout
The offending divers, fish, and bubbly in question. Certainly looks like forced alcoholic intake to me.
One of the divers told news agency PAP that they had found the pike half-dead and wanted to "restore it to consciousness by treating it with champagne."It was not clear whether the fish survived. Police said it would not be needed as evidence in the investigation.
Re-read that last sentence.
Apparently, it is a crime to mistreat or abuse animals in Poland and pouring champagne into a fish's mouth seems to qualify. So, I would assume that since this is a criminal matter, charges must be filed, court dates must be set...and convictable evidence of the crime and it's responsibility must be collected and analyzed. I don't know what the criminal procedures are in Poland (I sense a Polish joke coming), but I do know that if I were prosecuting this kind of crime in America, I'd want the fucking fish in order to determine if it was abused.
Because for all we know, these divers could be lying and the photo a fake.
Posted by Drizzten at January 09, 2004 08:24 AM
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