October 9, 2015 — A tuna fisherman charged with killing a pilot whale that died of a bullet wound said Friday the charges against him should be dismissed.
The fisherman, Daniel Archibald, said in a court filing that the investigation disregarded the facts. He alleges investigators used an illegal, warrantless search. He also says investigators ignored ballistics tests that showed a bullet in the whale could not have come from his Mosin-Nagant rifle, a World War II-era weapon.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for New Jersey declined to comment on the case. The government has not yet responded to the briefs calling for the charges to be dismissed.
The pilot whale was found on a beach in Allenhurst in September 2011 and it died soon after that. Authorities determined that the 740-pound mammal starved to death because of an infection caused by a bullet that hit it about a month earlier.