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Satanica

Veteran Member
Bold Member!
Hat tip to ghosttruck.

I guess he was supposed to carry a raccoon sized life jacket or something. Not sure wtf he was supposed to do with it. Check your boat BEFORE you leave the dock is the moral of this story or be excoriated on the internet!

A Florida man has apologized amid an investigation into a video posted to his social media account last week showing him allegedly shoo a stowaway raccoon off his boat to its presumed death while 20 miles offshore.
[....]
“Knowing raccoons can be rabid and unpredictable, the only realistic option we could think of in that moment was to get the raccoon off the boat,” read the statement, in part.

Cope said in his initial Facebook post that the boat was about 20 miles out in the Gulf of Mexico when the raccoon appeared growling and hissing.

“Get off my f---ing boat,” a man, presumably Cope, yells in the video, which has ignited a furor across social media. “We're just going to have to push him off.”

The raccoon then appeared to fall off the boat. The video showed the raccoon paddling in the ocean.

“So long, sucker,” the man said.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission learned of the video on May 8 and began an investigation, the Tampa Bay Times reported.
[....]

https://www.foxnews.com/us/florida-man-raccoon-boat-apology
 
You'd think a lawyer would know better than to video himself throwing a terrified agressive raccoon off his boat and post it on the internet. I would not hire him! He obviously is not good enough at thinking ahead about consequences. No professional use to me.

Because I'd probably do what he did. But I would be too embarassed to admit my failure in forethought had forced me to drown a raccoon.
He's probably a fucked up scientologist.
Every day idiot is a sufficient explanation.
 
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Why are people angry about this? Are we going to get pissed at mousetraps and rat traps and people slapping flies, too??

When I had the raccoon who scaled up my old house to the third floor, tall ceilings, walk out basement, people kept telling me to save that little bastard's life too. My landlord consulted with local wildlife organizations and he followed their protocol and although I never asked about the end result (I still don't want to know for sure), I'm pretty sure everyone agreed the raccoon had to die. You can't release a bugger who knows how to scale buildings and slice through window screens to chase and terrorize my cat and eat all her food. It's not a reasonable solution and you know he'd find a new target ASAP after relocation... but I was STILL bombarded with messages saying to saaaave him. I just responded that it was out of my hands thankfully. Fuck everyone's safety and the safety of their pets, right???

Be kind to animals every minute that you can, but protect your loved ones and yourself before saving a filthy oversized street rat that lives in your trash cans and attacks.

Also, don't post it online when you kill a thing. Always a bad call. Show some people in person if you'd like but posting the video publicly will not go well.
 
Did you offer to drop it off at their place so they could deal with the destructive little hellion?

--Al

A friend DID offer to take the thing, bless her heart. Given that this particular raccoon was obsessed with cats and their food I wasn’t going to entertain the idea for half a second and just stuck with mentioning it was my landlord’s raccoon now.

Cat lives >> raccoon lives, eeeeery day.
 
As someone who has killed a few raccoons and knows their fighting varmint ways...I would have thrown that racccon in the ocean too.
What I would not have done is posted anything about it on social media. I ain't no high priced lawyer with a good practice, a swell boat, and an arm candy wife..... but I know when it's time to keep a raccoon killing strictly private!
No one would care if it it was a big rat instead of a raccoon.
 
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It’s a hard video for an animal lover to watch: An apparently scared raccoon skitters along the bow of a boat as a man shouts at him, threatening to push him into the water, until the animal finally slips off the edge. A subsequent video shows the raccoon trying to stay afloat in the water.

Florida lawyer Thomas Cope posted the videos on Facebook, where they went viral—and led to outrage.

Cope says the raccoon stowed away on the boat, only coming out when it was 20 miles offshore. The animal is presumed to have died at sea, and some viewers of the video called the whole thing “disgusting” and “despicable,” the Tampa Bay Times reports.

Cope has since apologized, and the state has launched an investigation.

“The animal was running around the boat hissing and growling, making it impossible for me or my friend to drive the boat,” Cope said in a statement. “Knowing raccoons can be rabid and unpredictable, the only realistic option we could think of in the moment was to get the raccoon off the boat.”

He added that he felt bad for the raccoon, though he can be heard in the video telling it “so long, sucker” as it fell into the water and he referred to it as a “trash panda” in the post caption, per the Orlando Weekly.

A source tells WFLA that Cope originally posted the videos to a private group for boaters, but they were shared widely outside of that group.
Video at link
 
I don't like raccoons.
They are horrible creatures.

That being said, the was a horrible thing to do to a living creature.

I hope this guy gets a hefty punishment. I dont mean a fine.
He needs to sit in jail.
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He's the type of guy that will kick a baby because he lost a video game.

We can't force him to be empathetic.
But we can show him it's not acceptable and people who do this get punished.
 
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Many years back, my niece was working in a vet clinic, someone brought in 3 baby raccoons from where the mom was killed. I took one and raised her and OMG was she a sweetheart!!! She had a cage, for the night, but the rest of the day she was either outside or playing inside with the dogs! Once she got a bit older, I began to feel sorry for her to never have the "love" of another or babies herself, so I contacted a rehab facility, on federally protected land, and she was sent there! She WAS eventually released in the wild again. Boy was she spoiled though, LOL She had a hammock in her pen that she would climb in and I would put a blanket over her every night! The dogs played with her the same as they would another dog, as did she!!! I would love to post a picture of her/dogs, but can't figure out how to do it, LOL I CAN understand nuisance ones and the messes they can create as well! I hate that this man handled it in this fashion, but given the circumstances, can't say I would or would not do the same! Being me, I would try to befriend it first, LOL If that didn't work in my favor, she would have to go swimming!!!!
 
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