LuciferSam
Banned
Thanks SoWal for your comments and help. I've been busy trying to figure out what happened to my daughter-in-law & our 5-year old granddaughter's turtle encounter with the F&W officers.
Here's a more acurate story.
My daughter-in-law was startled & frightened with a loud banging on the front door. she looked out to see an official looking uniformed person. A stranger in uniform is not a normal visitor so she opened the door in fear of an emergency. With an intimiditing agressive voice & said an anonymous person called the turtle hot line # that we had a sea turtle on the premise. My daughter-in-law can't remember clearly, but thought he did say he was a fish & wildlife officer. He did not show any identification or explain himself to calm her fears. He insisted he had to come inside to inspect the turtle. He used his F&W official position to get permission to come inside so she reluctantly said OK. It frightened our 5-year old who started to cry thinking he would take her pet turtle away. He came into our home & inspected the (small about 2" dia.) turtle & then declared it was a land turtle. He went on to say if it was a sea turtle, it's a federal crime with jail and a huge fine. No apology, then left my very shaken daughter-in-law and crying 5-year old. I am sure if a man answered the door his attitude would be different. What a jerk.
I wondered how he got into our gated community and learned Police, Fireman & Fish & Wildlife officers have special gate codes to enter any gated community. I also understand from our maintenance dept. they constantly come into our complex turning off lights then remove anything they feel will harm the sea turtles. They don't ask, they just tell you with their superior attitude. The other issue that bothers me is the person who turned in the complaint to the sea turtle hotline #. Why didn't they approch our granddaughter & ask if her pet was a sea turtle? This was an excited child telling everyone about her turtle when they were at the kiddie mall. Real sicko person taking down the car license # so they could track us down!!
I also called Sharon Maxwell at seaturtlewatch.com some one suggested I check out. Sharon checked her hot line and there was no phone call logged into her hot line # so it must have been too another hot line#. It's a beautiful web site and a wonderful turtle web site everyone should look at. I have a renewed respect for the turtle volunteer's and apologize with any thoughts I had. Thank you for protecting these wonderful creatures.
Summary:
Thanks everyone for listening, I was just protecting my family & hopefully this never happens to your family. I am here in Michigan and getting a phone call from a frightened family member made me want to jump on a plane to kick some butt. We love 30-A & SoWall.
Tom
That sounds like something straight out of the movie Brazil.
