I reckon you can get in trouble anywhere if you try hard enough! This is definitely the first time I've even heard of this type of crime, and I hope it's the last!
Pretty stiff penalty for this bandit, I think!
Serial egg thief Matthew Gonshaw jailed and banned from Scotland
A serial egg thief from London has been jailed and banned from entering Scotland for the rest of his life during the bird breeding season.
Matthew Gonshaw, 49, admitted stealing the eggs of several rare species on the Isle of Rum last year.
Inverness Sheriff Court heard how he was spotted raiding nests in a bird colony on the island.
Jailing Gonshaw for six months, Sheriff Margaret Neilson described him as a "wildlife destroyer".
When he was searched by police in May 2011, officers found 20 eggs from a variety of species, including Manx shearwater and Meadow pipit.
Gonshaw, who has been jailed for similar offences in the past, also had maps of the Inverness and Cairngorm areas, where there are populations of Red Kite, Osprey and Golden Eagles.
Later officers searched his London flat where they found a large collection of birds eggs, among them were seven golden eagle eggs and eight osprey eggs.
Speaking after Gonshaw was sentenced, the head of Scotland's wildlife and environmental crime unit at the Crown Office, Craig Harris, said: "Our wildlife is part of our national character.
"It improves our quality of life, underpins many livelihoods and supports the growing nature tourism industry.
"Wildlife crime is a blatant attack against all of these benefits."
Sounds just short of tar and feathers for this Bird Brained bird egg burglar! Guess it could have been worse. Just imagine if all these birds had ganged up on this bozo!
Coffee on the patio this morning. How about toasted home made bread with some honey powder?
8 comments:
Just the sort of trouble I'd expect someone to get into on the Isle of Rum.
Guess his six months in jail wasn't too egg-citing for him!
Bread & honey?? Be right there!
I don't think the penalty was to stiff.
I think they should have let the birds loose on him. That would have been a sight to see. Bread and honey sounds good.
More nuts then B.P. over there??
It takes all kinds they say. Can you imagine what is place would smill like after all those eggs rotted.
They should have given him a year not just 6 months.
Now for the coffee and fresh bread I'm there.
There was a man here (died about a year ago) that was well known for his fishing exploits. Caught in Canadian waters a few time poaching and they jailed him, fined him, took his boats and equipment, and then banded him from Canadian waters for life.
He was smart enough to not go back again, prison would have been the result.
Morning HJ, what is honey powder? I usually use honey from the jar so this is a new one for me. And I think that egg thief had his brains scrambled.
Post a Comment