"On Monday, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's fisheries law enforcement office released a photo of Bietz and offered a $20,000 reward for information leading to an arrest, civil penalty or criminal conviction in the July 27 decapitation of a sea lion at Point Pinos Beach in Pacific Grove. The next day, the agency took down the photo and said that no mammal parts had been taken from the beach after all."
"Rashelle Diaz, a Monterey resident who reported the incident to authorities, has a different memory of the events. She says she confronted Bietz and his daughter after she saw him leaning over the sea lion and prodding it with a knife. In a video Diaz recorded of the incident, she asks Bietz what he needs a dead seal for, to which he responds, "I told you we're just taking the head." "For what?" she asks him. "The skull," he says. "To dry it?" she continues. "Yes," he responds."
"Bietz told the Los Angeles Times on Wednesday that he doesn't recall exactly what he said during the July confrontation but that it's possible he said "that I was just going to take the head" as a "smart-ass, sarcastic remark." Bietz also denied accusations that he was carrying a knife on the beach, saying that the object photographed in his hand was likely either a stick, his phone or the lanyard attached to his keys."
A man visiting a beach with his daughter was identified in a federal photo tied to the alleged July 27 decapitation of a sea lion at Point Pinos Beach and a $20,000 reward was offered. The agency removed the photo the following day and said no mammal parts had been taken from the beach. A witness recorded a confrontation in which the man referred to taking the head or skull; the man later said his remark may have been sarcastic and denied carrying a knife, suggesting the photographed object was a stick, phone or key lanyard.
Read at The Mercury News
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