Navy Cross recipient charged with killing birds
Mary sends us a link to the Daytona News-Journal which reports that Donald A. Daigneault, a Korean War veteran who earned the Navy Cross is facing charges for “shooting” some sandhill cranes. 81-year-old Daigneault claims that he “shot” the cranes with a sling shot and some marbles to keep them from ruining his yard, but a neighbor claims to have heard gunfire;
Daigneault said the cranes were damaging his house, costing him about $200 to repair screens. He said his home’s windows have reflective film to protect against hurricanes. But he said the cranes see their reflections in the windows and start banging their beaks on the glass. It sounds like someone smacking the glass with a stick, he said.
“When they finished destroying my bird feeder, they would stand there and look at themselves and bang on my windows,” Daigneault said.
Yes, Daigneault is listed as a legitimate recipient of the medal;
Daigneault was a 19-year-old private first class in the Marine Corps on Sept. 12, 1951 with Company D, 2nd Battalion, 7th Marines and 1st Marine Division (Reinforced), according to the Military Times website. Daigneault’s squad was attacking an enemy-controlled hill when it found itself among mines and booby traps.
Daigneault, suffering from shrapnel wounds, saw enemy soldiers preparing to attack the wounded and vulnerable squad. Daigneault crawled to an exposed area and drew fire away from his comrades, then opened fire and killed four attackers, wounded another three and forced the others to retreat.
Daigneault was “responsible for saving the lives of his comrades and for the accomplishment of his unit’s mission,” according to the Military Times website.
He would say little on Thursday about the fight.
“My squad got wiped out. We were either killed or wounded,” Daigneault said. “I was one of the fortunate ones who made it back to the MASH because some South Korean guy carried me on his back.”
He said he was carrying a BAR, or Browning Automatic Rifle.
“I really don’t know how many I shot,” he said.
Category: Real Soldiers
If he had lake property, he would have 30 geese honking all day and terrorizing the neighborhood dogs, while “fertilizing” his deck, dock, boats and grass
I have Blue Herons that come in and feed on my mothers fish in her pond I built her… damned protected species.
Feel bad for the guy, I do. But there are other ways of getting rid of them that are actually legal. I use a motion sensor activated sprinkler head. It blast out a stream of water and it hits them a few times and they don’t come back. Pretty sure it would work on the Cranes as well.
Damned cranes are destructive as hell.
How did this guy not rate an MOH? dayum…
“He was charged with killing or wounding a threatened species, a third-degree felony punishable by up to five years in prison.”
A felony? The only crime here is treating an 81-year-old war hero as one would a puke criminal. Not a fine. Not probation. Not even a court appearance for this man. I’ll get the phone number and email address of the prosecutor and post it in a few minutes. It’s okay for windmills to kill bald eagles. That is forgiven–but let a man protect his private property from the ravages of the flying rats and he’s charged with a felony.
Many years ago, when my son and his cousins were all in the 6-10 year old range, I took them all down to a local creek. It was a hot summer day and the wide creek was shallow, cool, and mostly shaded by big Oaks and Sycamores.
The creek itself (also one of my favorite “secret” fishing spots) was full of Bulfrog tadpoles in various stages ofgrowth. Some with two legs, some with tails, some with four legs, etc, etc, and all of them bigger than a child’s fist.
I set those kids loose on the tadpoles with cheap butterfly nets. They spent an entire afternoon playing and chasing tadpoles in that creek. Lots of screaming and laughing and a good time was had by all. In the end they managed to fill two 5 gallon buckets about 3/4 of the way full with tadpoles. And looking at the creek you couldn’t tell that they had made any kind of dent. There were still hundreds, if not thousands of tadpoles swimming together in large groups.
We took those two buckets home to my uncle’s farm and distributed the tadpoles fairly evenly between three of the largest ponds.
Within a day we had large groups of those damn Blue Herons in all three ponds swallowing tadpoles as fast as they could. They probably ate 90-95% of them.
Endangered species my ass.
R.J. Larizza is the State’s Attorney. His bio gives no indication that he is a Veteran.His contact info:
251 N Ridgewood Avenue, Daytona Beach, FL 32114
Phone: (386) 239-7710; Fax: (386) 239-7711
The judge is one Leah R. Case. She is a former prosecutor and, I must say, easy on the eyes.
Division 43
251 N. Ridgewood Ave.
Daytona Beach, FL 32114
Phone (386) 239-7790
Fax (386) 239-7882
If you call, you’ll get a clerk. Ask for Mr. Larizza’s office. You’ll get either a secretary of an attorney. just say that you read about the Marine who is charged with killing a bird and you hope that the case is dropped entirely but if that will not happen, you hope that the case is placed on the stet docket. (that allows the case to be resurrected over the next year if the Veteran is again charged with a crime. Otherwise, the case dies.
A letter to the judge may or may not be read by her personally BUT her law clerk will certainly read it and let the judge know the sentiment. Heck, a postcard will; do the trick, too, but the real pl;ayer here is Larizza.
Imprerssive Korea cred… I can only echo. Dayum.
If you read the article, it claims he was seen shooting at the birds – yet the closest dead one was found a half a mile from his house. Sounds more like a neighbor vs. neighbor dispute than a legal matter worth a felony charge.
Like the sprinker trick. Would be nice if it worked on hogs or armadillos.
@6 Thanks for the contact information, as well as describing a “stet docket” as I had never heard of that before. I will make a call later.
@7, hogs aren’t protected… not sure about armadillos. I would shoot the hog.
The Florida Sandhill Crane is on the endagered species list, which does make killing it a crime. I hope that this Hero is given some leniency, and that perhaps someone could go and show him how to eliminate the problem without killing the birds.
@5 Blue Herons suck.. they are a protected species, but man I would have loved to have had a shotgun and when they first showed up. I learned to stock the pond with inexpensive gold fish and not Koi. I had over 150 Goldfish in that pond one day and the next it was down to around 30. The majority of those fish were born in that pond so they really did not cost me much. The Heron will just sit there and eat until there is nothing left or they get frightened off. Fortunately they are extremely skittish.
@8: We had a huge problem with dumpster chickens (ravens) when I was stationed in Alaska. You aren’t allowed to shoot those either.
Well hopefully a decent attorney will take up his case “pro- bono” ( I think that’s the term). Anyway, the old guy at least told the truth about getting rid of the little bastards. Most people would have lied.
By the way if the government says a species is “endangered” they should be held responsible for any damages caused by them to peoples property or livestock, since you cant shoot the things.
After hearing all this, I think we’re fortunately only to have pesky Canada geese! At least they’re not protected but you can’t go shooting them in residential neighborhoods either. they are beautiful to watch, but so disgusting.
We only see herons and cranes every once in a while when they’re migrating through, and never more than one or two at a time. I didn’t realize how bad they are.
Kudos to Mr. Daigneault, a true American hero. I sure hope this gets dropped.
A crying damned shame, I hope the prosecutor takes it easy on him!
He needs to get a government subsidized windmill installed on his property. Then he will be given carte blanche to kill as many birds as he can, including bald eagles with no fear of prosecution.
He didn’t roll over for rampaging chinamen even when wounded but he’s supposed to roll over for some obnoxious birds destroying his shit?
WTF America.
@8 A nice greyhound keeps small animals out of your yard, my daughter’s greyhound would catch anything smaller than a human child and pretty much kill it in a second or less (no noise makes it hard for the neighbors to know what’s going on, that and an 8 foot privacy fence)….they are beautiful to watch run but they are about as bright as a 15 watt bulb…
I owned a greyhound ages ago, he never killed anything. Probably because he never had the chance, even when I would let him loose to run the animals all saw that beast coming and hid. You are right about them being not too bright, but they are great pets.
“…neighbor claims to have heard gunfire.” Wow what a neighbor! I’ll go with the old “car backfiring.”
FLA needs to let it go.
Beretverde: for what it’s worth, the Daytona News-Journal article says that one of his neighbor’s wives claims to have seen him shooting at the birds. Not sure that’s true, but it’s what the article says.
That said, I’m kinda wondering how they’re going to prove this guy was the one who shot the 3 animals in question w/o a ballistic match. Even if he was observed taking a potshot at one or more cranes (and I’m not saying that’s the case), absent an eyewitness to the shooting of that specific bird or a ballistic match what proves he’s the guy who shot the cranes that died? It’s entirely possible that the wounded crane was shot elsewhere, flew some distance, landed on his property, and was found there after being shot by someone else.
Personally, I think we have a case here of an ambitious prosecutor overreaching, possibly in search of publicity. I could be wrong.
rb325th – Hogs are varments and totally unprotected (hell, we have around 2.5 million too many) and armadillos are just pesky… but they both are pretty much nocturnal and especially around a city. there’s damn all you can do about them digging holes in your property. About 9/10ths of Texas would give their eyeteeth for a way to scare ’em off and keep ’em gone. Only thing we can do is shoot ’em and here in the ‘burbs, some of the neighbors tend to object to that.
David,a crossbow is silent and the hogs will run a good distance away after being shot . Wipe your arrows for fingerprints and you are good to shoot. Deny everything. Some cities allow this type of hunting with a permit(inside the city limits). Might want to check that out. Joe PS good eating also
any more, it’s not the shooting, it’s the oh-dark-thirty bed time that accompanies it! Any more, I LIKE my sleep. I just get irritated at armadillos. And eat pigs.
A barking dog that chases the right kind of critters (with training) will do a lot more to keep them out of your yard than throwing stuff at them.
Green herons are worse than the blues, too, and we have them up here. They’ll scavenge anything, including other birds.