Florida fisherman frustrated with dolphins shot and poisoned them, feds say [View all]

Zackery Brandon Barfield, 31, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 30 days in prison.

A Panama City commercial fisherman shot bottlenose dolphins and fed them poisoned baitfish after federal prosecutors in Florida said he “grew frustrated” with the federally protected species eating snapper caught by his clients.

Now Zackery Brandon Barfield, 31, has been sentenced to 30 days in prison over killing the dolphins and poisoning them with a toxic pesticide in 2022 and 2023, according to a Friday news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Florida. The judge also ordered him to pay a $51,000 fine.

In hurting the dolphins, Barfield, whose first name is spelled “Zachary” in court filings, also harmed the Gulf of Mexico’s waters by polluting the ecosystem with Methomyl, the pesticide he used to poison the marine mammals for months, prosecutors said.

Acting Assistant Attorney General Adam Gustafson, of the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division, said in a statement that Barfield, a “longtime charter and commercial fishing captain,” knew “the regulations protecting dolphins, yet he killed them anyway — once in front of children.”

https://www.tampabay.com/news/crime/2025/05/27/florida-bottlenose-dolphins-killed-panama-city/

Only 30 days? Well, it is the Florida Panhandle...and he'll probably do it again...