Posted on 06/28/2006 5:59:32 AM PDT by yankeedame
Bats no match for fruit bazooka
From: AAP By Catherine Best
June 28, 2006
THREE mischievous teenagers used a fruit-firing bazooka in a Melbourne park, endangering a colony of protected bats, a court was told today.
The trio used the 2m homemade weapon to fire oranges at a colony of grey-headed flying foxes at Yarra Bend Park, in Melbourne's east.
But the shots were heard by a group of golfers who dobbed the young men in.
The teenagers sat sheepishly in Heidelberg Magistrates Court today as their solicitor Andrew Robinson pleaded with the magistrate to let them off lightly, saying: "Boys do what boys do."
Jonathon Welst, 19, of Kew, Alexander Tulloch, 18, of Templestowe, and Samuel Hall, 18, of Balwyn, faced seven charges including disturbing wildlife, and six charges under the Victorian Firearms Act.
Department of Sustainability and Environment (DSE) prosecutor Richard Desmond told the court the offenders made an "orange gun" using a length of PVC pipe, with a range of 10m.
The weapon, filled with butane gas from hairspray, was loaded with oranges, ignited and fired three or four times at Yarra Bend Park as a "test" on December 8 last year.
"They (the offenders) said that the first couple of shots were basically fizzers," Mr Desmond told the court.
"It was only the last shot that disturbed the bats and had them circling."
Golfers nearby heard the shots and Parks Victoria officers confronted the teenagers in the car park.
No bats were injured and Mr Desmond said the trio stopped when the bats became unsettled.
Mr Robinson said the stunt was unlawful but not criminal and his clients - including Welst, who hoped to one day work for US space agency NASA - had their lives and careers ahead of them.
Magistrate Jill Crowe ordered the offenders to each donate $300 to the charity Wildlife Victoria and write a letter of apology to the park's chief ranger.
"I will be reading those letters of apology, if I don't think they're apologetic enough then that will be a failure," Ms Crowe said.
Outside court, DSE manager of biodiversity Mark Winfield said the reprimand should serve as a warning to others.
"They were actually shooting fruit and could the fruit have connected with the bats it could have killed them or injured them seriously," Mr Winfield said.
Yes.
Been there, saw that... never use Oxy acetlyne combination in a spud gun. It will blow a few windows out of your Dad's house, throw all the tools across his workshop and burn all the hair off the guy who activates it. Some of the details are still fuzzy when the subject comes up around Dad (What you don't know can't hurt you syndrome going on) and this happened 25 years ago!
So you're saying you need iron pipe to build it?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.