He killed a federally protected osprey. He will avoid jail.

A man who killed a federally protected osprey in Key West was sentenced to six months probation for pulling the trigger on the bird in 2018 to shoo it away from the ship’s mast.

Josiah Michael Fetzer, 23, of Valley City, Ohio, pleaded no contest to cruelty to animals and violating the Migratory Bird Treaty Act in front of Monroe County Judge Mark Wilson on Dec. 11.

Both charges are second-degree misdemeanors punishable by up to 60 days in jail.

Fetzer also got a $1,000 fine and 80 hours of community service at a nonprofit animal welfare organization.

Fetzer from the start admitted he fired a pellet gun at the osprey on Aug. 21, 2018, while working aboard the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Ingham Maritime Museum & National Historic Landmark, which is docked at the Truman Waterfront.

But he said he shot four or five times at the bird only to scare it off the mast, “which he said was common practice when seeing birds on a ship,” said Larry Kahn, a spokesman for the Monroe County State Attorney’s Office.

The final shot struck the osprey and it spiraled to the ground, landing on the pier.

The Key West Wildlife Center rescued the bird, which was taken to the Marathon Veterinary Hospital for surgery on its shattered wing.

But the osprey’s bone tissue was dying, and the bird was euthanized about a month and a half later at the Key West Wildlife Center.

Fetzer was not arrested. Instead a Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission officer gave him a citation and a court summons.

Assistant State Attorney Ryan Maher handled the case.

This story was originally published December 13, 2019 at 3:25 PM.

Gwen Filosa

Miami Herald

Gwen Filosa covers Key West and the Lower Florida Keys for FLKeysNews.com and the Miami Herald and lives in Key West. She was part of the staff at the New Orleans Times-Picayune that in 2005 won two Pulitzer Prizes for coverage of Hurricane Katrina. She graduated from Indiana University.