Prosecutors on Monday sentenced to three months in prison – a man who shot dead an elephant seal while resting on a California beach.
Jordan Gerbich, 30, who now lives in Utah, shot the sea mammal in the head on September 28, 2019 with a gun near San Simeon on the central coast of California.
Gerbich’s federal public defender did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday night.
However, before the sentencing, the lawyer wrote in a court document that the murder was “so unusual and disturbing” that Gerbich was shocked. He cited a history of drug abuse and physical abuse and neglect in childhood that gave him the need for approval.
Gerbich fired the seal after a drugged friend, “as a kind of grotesque test,” demanded that he kill an animal, according to the document.
Prosecutors wrote that the murder “did not take place by accident or on a whim”, that they drove to a place where they knew elephants were being taken out, and that Gerbich had brought a pistol.
The shooting took place at night and Gerbich used a flashlight to shoot it, officials said. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said the seal was shot in the head with its tail fins cut off and cut open.
Northern elephant seals are protected under the Marine Mammal Protection Act. Commercial hunting drove the species to extinction almost around 1900, but according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, they recovered numbers.
Gerbich was sentenced to three months in prison, followed by three months in house arrest. He will be under surveillance for one year, perform 120 hours of community service and pay a $ 1,000 fine, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said in central California.
He pleaded guilty to the charge of taking a sea mammal, a federal offense, in December.
