South Africa court drops case against penguin thieves
African black-footed penguins have been rated as endangered since 2010 (AFP Photo/JEWEL SAMAD)
Port Elizabeth (South Africa) (AFP) - A court in South Africa Wednesday dropped the case against two students who freed a penguin from a marine park and released it into the sea as protest against animal captivity.
Adrian Donian, 22, and Emile du Plessis, 24, were arrested in September 2016, after they broke into Bayworld oceanarium in Port Elizabeth and snatched "Buddy", an endangered African black-footed penguin.
The magistrate said he had dropped the case because the prosecuting authority had taken too long to decide whether to prosecute the two or not.
Their lawyer, Craig de Lange, had argued that the two be placed in a "rehabilitation programme because they are students and not hardcore criminals".
The animal was wrapped in a shirt and bundled in a car during a nighttime raid.
He was then taken to the coast where he was released into the Indian Ocean.
Officials at the centre had raised concerns that the three-year-old penguin who had lived most of his life in captivity would not survive in the open ocean.
Security camera footage showed the men entering the penguin enclosure and taking selfie photographs before stealing Buddy and later releasing him at the nearby Pollock Beach.
"They believe animals should not be kept in captivity and so they thought they were doing the right thing by releasing the penguin into the wild," said de Lange.
Buddy has never been found since the incident.
African black-footed penguins, also known as jackass penguins due to their braying noise, have been rated as endangered since 2010 after suffering from commercial fishing and shortage of prey.
Heartmenders Magazine Message
"If it is fake news, there is no news!"
Popular posts from this blog
By Okechukwu Okugo Is there any condition one can find oneself in life and it is justified to give up? Can something really ugly be turned into a thing of celebration? Before you answer here is the story of Godfrey Baguma who has been dubbed the ugliest man in Uganda. To start with, Godfrey was born normal until a rare unknown medical condition transfigured his face totally. Despite his condition he went ahead to marry one of the prettiest ladies in Uganda, his second wife after he divorced his first wife due to infidelity. Godfrey Baguma, 47, from Kyazanga in Lwengo District in Uganda met his second wife, Kate Namanda, 30, as a deformed man when Kate was 18 years old. But in 2013 they wedded. And recently he fathered his 8th child, an adorable daughter. Two of his children were from his first marriage while six are from his present union. His first child from Kate came in 2008. Despite a condition many would take as one
omments Sign in to like Reblog on Tumblr Share Tweet Email A bridge in China suspended over a 1,854-foot gorge became the "world's highest" when it opened to automotive traffic Thursday, reports said. The Beipanjiang Bridge took three years to build, cost more than $146.7 million dollars, and stretches to be 4,396 feet long. Its four-lane roadway sits nearly two thousand feet over the Beipan River, which it's named after, to connect the Yunnan and Guizhou provinces in southwest China, People's Daily Online reported. It surpassed the 1,837-foot-tall Sidu River Bridge for its world record title. We know what you're thinking: $146.7 million is cheap! And it is! After all, when the Golden Gate Bridge spanning San Francisco Bay was built in 1933 it cost $1.5 billion (in adjusted dollars), and the brand new New Bay Bridge, on the other side of town, ended up costing a whopping $6.7 billion when it was finished in 2013. The Beip
By Okechukwu Okugo Jaxon Buell of Florida, was born with a very uncommon condition diagnosed as Microhydranencephaly. He was born with some part of his brain and skull totally missing. And there is no known cause or no known cure. As a matter of fact, because of the rarity of his case, doctors gave him a few weeks to live on earth. Defying all odds and proving all doctors' prognosis wrong, this adorable baby has lived more than a year and 2 months. His mom, Brittany Buell told WTLV, as reported in Yahoo! Parenting: "We never thought he would make it through the pregnancy, let alone months and let alone making it to his first birthday, so for him to reach that milestone is a humongous deal...I think the doctors thought he would only make it a few weeks. They sent me home with hospice, and he was thriving in my eyes, so I cancelled hospice within two or three days of being home." The doctors had previously ruled in their diagnosis that Jaxon would never walk, ta