Most people rank dolphins right up there with puppies and baby chimps in terms of lovable animals. They\u2019re cute, playful, and highly intelligent, so I get odd looks when I tell folks I\u2019ve never been a huge fan of \u201cFlipper.\u201d I\u2019ll watch dolphins jump through rings at SeaWorld with my kids all day, but if you spend a lot of time fishing in saltwater, you\u2019ll learn that their impressive IQ can make them a nuisance to anglers.<\/p>\n
Dolphins will surround the school of bait you\u2019re on and drive away the tuna or stripers you were catching. They can be so adept at taking hooked fish off your line that you\u2019ll never get a catch to the boat. I\u2019ve experienced this several times, including in the Amazon with pink freshwater dolphins. They were so aggressive that you genuinely felt bad hooking another peacock bass because doing so was a death sentence for the fish 95 percent of the time.<\/p>\n
Bigger predators screwing up your fishing, however, is just part of the game from time to time. And freshwater anglers aren\u2019t immune. Pike and muskies routinely snatch bass and perch off the line. Snapping turtles get to your cut bait before the fish. In just about every stitch of saltwater that touches the U.S. \u2014 especially Florida \u2014 having a shark wallop a grouper or snapper as you\u2019re reeling it in is incredibly common. Losing fish to sharks happens so often, in fact, that it\u2019s referred to as \u201cpaying the taxman.\u201d<\/p>\n
Head up to New England and seals might swarm your boat to attack every porgy, seabass, or bluefish you\u2019re trying to put in the cooler. Fish the bayous of the Mississippi Delta and a gator might grab your redfish. We get frustrated or moan and groan about it at the bar, but the average angler just lives with these occasional problems.<\/p>\n
Of course, sometimes people get so frustrated over losing fish they take things too far, which was recently the case in Florida. Though I\u2019ve heard stories about charter captains going medieval on protected sharks and getting in trouble for it, I\u2019ve never heard something as egregious as the violation that led Captain Zackery Barfield to jail time and a fine north of $50,000.<\/p>\n
Barfield plead guilty to three counts of killing bottlenose dolphins, according to USA Today. Bottlenose dolphins are highly protected under the Marine Mammal Protection Act (as every saltwater angler should know). The incidents occurred between 2022 and 2023, but he was just recently sentenced to 30 days in jail plus a $51,000 fine, followed by a one-year term of supervised release.<\/p>\n
Barfield claims to have gotten frustrated by dolphins taking red snapper off his clients\u2019 lines during the short recreational season in the Gulf of Mexico. As a countermeasure, he began lacing baitfish with methomyl, a highly toxic pesticide harmful to humans and wildlife, and feeding them to the dolphins around his boat. Beyond violating the Marine Mammal Protection Act, using this poison also violated the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act, which accounted for the heftier sentence. Methomyl is restricted by the Environmental Protection Agency and is only supposed to be used in non-residential settings to control flies, though Barfield fed the poisoned baits to an estimated 24 to 70 dolphins over the course of several months.<\/p>\n
If that wasn\u2019t bad enough, Barfield also used a 12-gauge shotgun to shoot dolphins that were after clients\u2019 fish, including during one trip with elementary school-aged children onboard. It was confirmed that Barfield killed at least one dolphin with a shotgun between December 2022 and summer 2023, though he shot at least five more that did not immediately die near the boat.<\/p>\n
Beyond the atrocious act of killing protected marine mammals, carrying a bucket of poison and firing a shotgun on a boat full of customers shows a complete lack of disregard for safety. And, of course, doing all these things in the presence of clients just shows a complete lack of rational thought. I can\u2019t imagine Barfield was surprised that he got caught, because, according to the story, special agents from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration had been investigating him for two years following a tip that he was killing dolphins. The article doesn\u2019t specify where the tip came from, but I wouldn\u2019t be shocked to learn it was from a charter customer. If I\u2019d witnessed behavior like this, I\u2019d have made that call, too. It\u2019s also ridiculous to think that these actions would really do anything to quell the dolphin problem in the grand scheme of things.<\/p>\n
In the end, this story begs the question: How much is a fish worth? My answer is that there is no fish on the planet worth risking your safety or the safety of others or facing jail time, fines, and irreparable damage to your reputation.<\/p>\n
Though I can understand Barfield\u2019s frustration, captains have no more control over the behavior of the dolphins than they do the weather or a lack of a bite, which clients need to understand. You either deal it and sacrifice some fish, or you move and hope the dolphins don\u2019t follow you. The bottom line is that we\u2019re all stewards on the water and the critters who live there, which extends far beyond how we treat the fish we\u2019re trying to catch.<\/p>\n