New Jersey Wife Turns In Husband for Trapping and Drowning Squirrels

[Donna]

A New Jersey man has been charged with animal cruelty and fined $2,500 after he was turned in for trapping and drowning squirrels he claims were destroying his property. But here's the kicker: he was turned in by his wife, who apparently got fed up with her husband's ongoing squirrel war.

A Freehold-based attorney pleaded guilty to animal cruelty after his wife turned him in for using a "Havahart" trap to capture squirrels then drowning the animals in their backyard fountain pond, authorities said. Edward F. Colrick, 62, of Atlantic Avenue, pleaded guilty to the animal cruelty charge on Tuesday in Spring Lake Heights municipal court, where Judge George C. Pappas fined him $2,500 and ordered him to cease trapping animals, said Victor "Buddy" Amato, chief law enforcement officer for the Monmouth County Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Colrick, a partner in the Freehold-based law firm of McGovern, Provost and Colrick, was represented by fellow partner Timothy J. Provost, who told Pappas that Colrick did not know it was against the law to drown squirrels, and that the squirrels were causing damage to his property, according to Amato.

"What he should have done after trapping the animal was call a professional so the animal could be relocated. This is no way to take out an animal," Amato said, adding that a necropsy was performed on the animal by the Cornell Medical Institute, which confirmed it died by drowning. After a three- or four-year struggle with her husband over the trapping and killing of squirrels at their Spring Lake home, Patricia F. Colrick called police on Oct. 17 to report his transgressions, according to a written statement she provided to the Monmouth County SPCA in October. "I witnessed my husband capturing a squirrel in a 'Have A Heart' (sic) trap on the floor of our exterior side porch, carry the cage with the live animal in it, and put the cage with the squirrel in it into the small pool at the foot of my antique fountain in our backyard," she wrote. "When I saw what he was doing, I immediately tapped loudly on the kitchen window but my husband ignored me," she explained in the statement detailing the animal cruelty incident. (Asbury News)

OK, all you married guys, what's the lesson here? What important nugget of wisdom do you take away from this cautionary tale?

[Dumpsterkitty]

All I have to say is...he's a lawyer & he didn't know it was illegal?  PUUULEEEZE!!!

[valhalla]

Doesn't matter - he should have listened to his wife

[Bird Crazy]

Good for her. But if I was her I would worry about being found drowned in my own bathtub now. If the man stood there and watched the poor little squirrel drown and had no sympathy I don't think I would trust him, and you know he has to be mad at her for turning him in. What kind of punishment is that fine $2500 is nothing to a lawyer heck its probably only one hour of work.