PANAMA CITY, Fla. (Dec. 23)-- A case against a woman cited for feeding a dolphin was dismissed Dec. 22 by a judge who said state officials acted unconstitutionally when they arbitrarily decided earlier this year to expand the scope of a decades-old statute, according to an article in the Panama City, Fla., newspaper, The News Herald.
County Judge William Cooper ruled that the statute does not prohibit feeding dolphins, a common practice in the waters off Bay County for more than a century.
"We're very excited about the whole thing," said Attorney Kelly McIntosh, who represented the defendant at last week's hearing on the motion to dismiss the charge. "I would hope that the (Florida) Marine Patrol would back off based on the fact that this is something that the Legislature is obviously going to have to address sooner or later.
The case began when an Alabama college student was spotted throwing a piece of turkey to a dolphin. She was arrested. But unlike others before her, she fought the charge, the newspaper reported. Last week a somewhat humorous hearing took place as Cooper heard from prosecutor Carroll McCauley - who contended dolphins are harmed by being fed by humans - and McIntosh. McIntosh said dolphin feeding has been going on for hundreds of years and no one has shown that it has caused any harm.
And if the Legislature wanted to ban dolphin feeding, she said, it would have specifically prohibited it.
In his ruling, Cooper said the state had to prove that feeding a dolphin would not only harass or annoy it, but also would affect its wellbeing, the article stated.
"The State does not maintain that the turkey bits that defendant tossed to the dolphin would have injured or killed the animal, had it decided to eat them," Cooper said in his ruling. "The parties stipulated that the State's evidence at trial would be that the dolphin skillfully caught the turkey morsel and promptly spit it out.
Cooper said there is nothing in the statute "that would place a person armed with common sense on notice that feeding or attempting to feed dolphins is a crime."
The writer of the article said the order dismissing the charge is not intended to set guidelines on whether it is "proper" to feed dolphins, Cooper wrote. It simply states that most people inclined to feed a dolphin have no idea that others think such activity is harmful to the animals.