Vancouversun.com: The homemade video shows David Fraser and a third Cudworth man, Jeremy Rowlands, firing about 42 rifle shots from inside a car into a large pond filled with ducks and grebes.
Their excited voices came through loud and clear on the four-minute video, played during a late-afternoon sentencing hearing: Cheering, laughter and exclamations over the blood while birds could be seen struggling in the water.
The response from viewers was so negative, Fraser said he took it down from the YouTube site about six hours later — but someone simply re-posted a copy.
It’s not duck hunting season and the men made no effort to retrieve the corpses anyway, court heard. Some of the unlucky targets were not ducks, but grebes, which are never in season, wildlife officials said.
It’s also illegal — and highly hazardous — to fire from the inside of a vehicle.
SHOOT: Idiots.
Jeremy Rowlands, left, James Fraser, centre, and David Fraser, right, are set to plead guilty to various charges related to an incident where the trio allegedly shot ducks illegally.
“At the time we thought it was funny,” one of three embarrassed men told reporters outside provincial court Monday after they pleaded guilty to a slate of federal and provincial wildlife charges.
“We thought we were just having fun — really immature, stupid fun, you know? It was silly to do, but I had no idea you could only hunt migratory birds at a certain time,” 30-year-old David Fraser said.
They made sure there was no one visible on the horizon in the direction they were shooting, he added.
All three men pleaded guilty, without a lawyer, on the same day as their first court appearance. Altogether, their fines total $16,000.
All three are unemployed and will try to work the money off with community service through the provincial fine option program, they told court.
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