“Saving a baby woodpecker from becoming a cat’s next meal briefly turned into a legal mess for an aspiring veterinarian and her mom, before U.S. Fish and Wildlife officials let them off the hook,” reports the cable news network MSNBC.<\/p>\n
..”The citation is null and void,” U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service spokesman Bill Butcher told msnbc.com on Tuesday. “We’ve rescinded it.”<\/p>\n
The trouble started earlier this summer when sixth grader Skylar Capo, 11, of Fredericksburg, Virginia,\u00a0spotted a\u00a0baby woodpecker that had fallen from its net\u00a0in her family’s backyard.<\/p>\n
Shen she noticed the family’s cat was far too interested.<\/p>\n
So, Skylar rescued the hatchling.\u00a0 “I’ve just always loved animals,” she told local WUSA-TV. “I couldn’t stand to watch it be eaten.”<\/p>\n
Skylar says she tried to find the bird’s nest so she could return it to its mother. However, no nest could be found in her backyard’s treetops.<\/p>\n
“She was just going to take care of it for a day or two, make sure it was safe and uninjured, and then she was going to let it go,” her momther, Alison Capo, told the TV station.<\/p>\n
Then, according to MSNBC:<\/p>\n
The Capos put the bird in their car to drive to Skylar’s mom house. Along the way, they stopped at a Lowes Home Improvement Store, bringing the bird inside in a cage so it wouldn’t suffer in the summer heat while they shopped.<\/p>\n
The woman worked for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and informed them that the woodpecker is protected under the Federal Migratory Bird Act, according to WUSA. Taking or transporting a protected species is illegal.<\/p>\n
The act also prohibits the right to “pursue, hunt, take, capture, kill, attempt to take, capture or kill” birds listed under protection, according to the Fish and Wildlife Services’ website.<\/p>\n
The Capos brought the baby woodpecker home, opened the cage for it to fly away, and reported the incident to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.<\/p>\n
Capo said wildlife officials told her, “That’s great, that’s exactly what we want to see,” leading her to believe there would be no more discussion about the matter.<\/p>\n
But two weeks later, the same agent who had confronted the Capos knocked on their door, this time with a state trooper. They gave her a $535 fine for taking the bird, and said if convicted of violating the law, Capo could face up to a year in jail.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Now the feds have decided that was a mistake. Butcher has told\u00a0the cable network that\u00a0 the 11-year-old won’t\u00a0have to pay\u00a0any fine and\u00a0is not at\u00a0risk of going to jail.<\/p>\n
Butcher said the agency has apologized to the child and will send her a formal letter ending the matter.<\/p>\n
But Skylar has certainly learned her lesson.<\/p>\n
And it doesn’t have anything to do with avoiding baby birds.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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