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Thursday, May 20, 2004 - Page updated at 01:26 A.M.
Killing rare green sea turtle draws house arrest for man
By Ian Ith
Seattle Times staff reporter
When a rare green sea turtle wandered out of the ocean onto a Pacific County beach three years ago, some people went for their phones to call wildlife agents to help.
Bert E. Jenkins went for a nail gun.
Last week, Jenkins, 54, a disabled logger from Ocean Park, Pacific County, was sentenced to six months of home detention for hauling the protected turtle off the beach and shooting it to death so he could keep the massive shell as a trophy.
Jenkins claimed in court that he thought the animal was doomed, so he put it out of its misery, at first using the nail gun.
But the crime triggered disbelief from environmentalists devoted to saving the fast-disappearing reptiles, which seldom stray from the tropics to the cold waters off the Washington coast.
"From a moral standpoint, it's just outrageous to just shoot an animal for its shell," said Andy Peri, a spokesman for Sea Turtle Restoration, a San Francisco advocacy group.
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