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Birdwatcher Arrested For Taking Pale Male's Dead Mate Home
By
Garth Johnston
Published Feb 28, 2012
Modified Feb 28, 2012
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By
Garth Johnston
Published Feb 28, 2012
Modified Feb 28, 2012
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New York has many hawks, but only one celebrity hawk: Pale Male. So when one of Pale Male's ladies gives up the ghost, it makes news. And, in the case of Pale Male's latest late lover Lima, the guy who made the discovery gets arrested? Indeed he does!
The sad news that Pale Male's gal for the past year, Lima, had been found dead in Central Park was reported Sunday on palemale.com by birdwatcher Lincoln Karim. On Monday an environmental conservation officer contacted Karim to get the bird's body—the birdwatcher had taken it home with him out of the park the night before (he said he wanted to take her to a lab to find out if his theory, that she died from eating a poisoned rat, was accurate).
According to Rodney Rivera, a spokesman for the state Department of Environmental Conservation:
The arrest “happened because he was in contact with us for pretty much the whole day” on Monday, Mr. Rivera said, and had given the environmental conservation officer “somewhat of a runaround, saying he’d meet at one place and then going there and not having the bird on him and getting the bird. After putting in so many man-hours chasing the man down, they felt at that point they had to charge him.”
“This could have all been totally avoided if he had gave us the bird at the time he initially called us,” Mr. Rivera said, “and we would have sent it up to our pathology unit in Albany. Unfortunately, he made it harder on us, and himself.”
Karim was held overnight and released this morning. He was charged with illegal possession of a raptor without a permit (we hate when that happens!). When talking to the Times before the arrest Karim had expressed doubts that the agency would actually take the body to a lab.
On the plus side? Within hours of Lima's death, it appears that another lady hawk has set her eyes on Pale Male. That guy gets around.
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Garth Johnston
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