Man who shot elephant seal in head as it rested on beach sentenced to prison
Jordan Gerbich, 30, in police custody
((Santa Maria Police Department))A man who fatally shot an elephant seal on a California beach has been sentenced to three months in prison.
Jordan Gerbich, 30, who lived in California at the time of the incident but is now based in Utah, shot the seal in the head on 28 September 2019 near to the Piedras Blancas State Marine Reserve in San Simeon, according to federal prosecutors.
He fatally shot the seal that was resting on the beach using a .45-caliber pistol, “as a kind of grotesque test,” after an intoxicated friend, told him to kill the marine mammal.
Prosecutors claimed that the 30-year-old did not kill the seal “by accident or on a whim,” explaining that Mr Gerbich and his friend brought a handgun to an area where the animals are known to rest.
The incident happened at night, with Mr Gerbich using a flashlight to help see the seal when shooting it.
The seal was found on the beach with a bullet wound on its head and its tail fins cut off and cut open, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
Mr Gerbich pleaded guilty in December 2020 to one count of illegally taking a marine mammal, a federal misdemeanour, and was sentenced to three months in prison earlier this week.
His three months in prison will be followed by three months in home detention, before Mr Gerbich will have to perform 120 hours of community service alongside paying a $1,000 (£727) fine.
Northern elephant seals are a protected species, due to the population nearly becoming extinct in the early 1900s because of commercial hunting. Numbers have recovered in the decades since.
According to the NOAA, elephant seals live along the Pacific coast, with their main threats including being struck by ships and getting tangled in fishing gear.
