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Footballer in Colombia could face jail for kicking owl off field
A professional soccer player in Colombia faces up to three months in jail for kicking an opposing team's lucky owl, which had been been hit by a ball after landing on the field Sunday. The owl died Tuesday.
The owl was considered a good luck charm for the Atlético Junior squad in Barranquilla and lived in its Metropolitan Stadium.
Luis Moreno, a Panamanian player for Deportivo Pereira, was met with chants of "Murderer! Murderer! Murderer!" after kicking the owl and had to leave the stadium under heavy police guard, according to the Daily Mail in London. (The Daily Mail has video of the owl kick, or you can check it out on YouTube.)
For those too squeamish to watch the footage, which the Daily Mail warns constitutes animal cruelty, a Pereira defender chases a Junior attacker into the penalty box, wins the ball from him and clears it, poorly, hitting the owl that had landed on the field.
The referee stops play, and Moreno trots over and kicks the bird off the field, a distance of about three yards.
The incident was aired on national television and prompted widespread outrage, and not just from Junior fans. Environmental groups urged sanctions against Moreno and called for protests at the National Soccer building in Bogota.
Moreno apologized, saying it was not his intention to harm the bird.
"I did it to see if the owl could fly," the Daily Mail quoted him as saying.
The owl was taken to Zoosalud veterinary clinic in Barranquilla, the Daily Mail reported. Veterinarians said it was suffering from stress and needed sedation but that X-rays indicated no fractures.
The veterinarians later told Colombia Reports, a news website, that the owl died early Tuesday of respiratory arrest.
A Spanish-language report from Radio Santa Fe in Bogota said that Moreno faces one to three months in prison and a maximum fine of 50,000 pesos, about $26.
Moreno apologized again in a news conference and said he would accept responsibility.
"I apologize to the whole country and more to the fans of Barranquilla because it was a very grave action, and if I receive a penalty, then I'll take it."
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-I did it to see if the owl could fly- What the...!?
Eh, you all should watch the video. Based on the headline, I expected him to wind up for a placekick on it, which would obviously be animal cruelty. In reality, he walks over, puts his foot under it, and shovels it into the air with no wind-up. Still not the brightest idea, but not intentionally brutal either. I could believe the "I wanted to see if it could fly" based on the video.
Oh, if you kick it hard enough, it'll fly!
Having been a combat medic and having owned birds most of my life, respiratory arrest comes from oversedation, not from being kicked.
In my country owl is a very bad luck. This man brought something horrible on his head. The lust time I saw the owl seating on my fence, my baby niece died, and God forbid for you to have a dream about awls.
It was a dumb thing to do but I agree with Boy... especially now that the vet said the owl wasn't injured, just distressed.
His fierce critics need to get some perspective and quit talking like this guy is Michael Vicks protege.
I guess some people just can't resist the opportunity to get righteous and pick up some stones.
"In reality, he walks over, puts his foot under it, and shovels it into the air with no wind-up. Still not the brightest idea, but not intentionally brutal either. I could believe the "I wanted to see if it could fly" based on the video."
Oh come on. I watched it after your wrote that and expected you to be correct but no way was that some sort of little tap up to help it up. He plain out kicked it hard and it sure looked like he was trying to just get rid of it and get it off the field. It wasn't quite 100% free kick from mid field hard but come on man that was far, far from a little tap or anything even remotely along those lines.
Charles is correct...respiratory distress often is a side effect of sedation in most birds. Hence the reason why one takes great caution when you sedate a bird for any veterinary purpose. Most likely, the bird was stressed by the action on the field, but the veterinarians felt the need to sedate the bird to examine it, and the bird reacted badly to the sedation, went into shock and then respiratory distress.
"This is the worst crime EVER oh the HUMANITY ! This guy should get the death penalty, he is evil" *munches on chicken sandwich from McDonalds* The bird had already been hit by a ball twice, it was done for regardless of what he did to it, the vid doesnt show it got knocked out of flight by the ball.
Gotta agree, that didn't really look like the forceful kick it's being made out to be. I'm sure he was just trying to get the thing to move off the field, and didn't really think about the emotional attachment the fans have to the bird.
For the record, I've struck possums that wouldn't leave my yard harder than that!
Maximum penalty! time to pay the piper you F-ing richard head!
I'd like to kick him and see if he flies.
I'd like to throw him off a building and see if he falls!!!
eventually not ha
The player just kicked this poor bird like it was nothing but a rag. What kills me is that the owl's head was moving back and forth when he approached it and kicked it. Nothing but blatant cruelty, whether intentional or not. I want to think that he thought he was putting it out of its misery, but I think not.
Not surprising given the situation in most Latin American countries where you are either living in a slum or you have a very low paying professional soccer career. Conservation and environmental issues don't even make the radar screen for these people. That's why the poor in America don't recycle, they dump their waste in vacant lots, and they treat public education like over glorified day care. Maslow called it the heirarchy of needs. The greater your needs, the less you care about esoteric issues.
50,000 pesos is not about 26 dollars
lol gotta love the huge maximum fine of 50,000 pesos...
It's actually about $4,200 bucks. I bet he doesn't have it
Charles, Either that or it was already dying. The first question should be "why was it on the field like that?" In my mind, if it had been healthy in the first place it wouldn't have been anywhere near that field. It seemed to me it wasn't able to move at all even before getting hit with the ball.
jdizzle1337, I just read your comment and that makes perfect sense. Since I didn't watch the game and am only going by the printed article and video it refers to I also didn't know it had been knocked out of flight by the ball. Yep, that would be the real reason the owl died, not from his final kick. What he did was still wrong, but he didn't kill it.
Don’t compare this guy to Michael Vick! Vick was involved in an ongoing interstate criminal conspiracy and gambling. It was not a mistake or a onetime thing, like a DUI or even drug use. Vick is a CRIMINAL who happens to play football. He tortured and killed animals for fun and profit! Vick should have been banned for life from the NFL!
Playing in the NFL is supposed to be a privilege, not a right! Vick shouldn’t be allowed to profit from his criminal activities! Pete Rose is still banned for gambling!
I agree with Boy. There is no sign of malice in his actions in the video. If he had bent down to pick it up and gently tossed it into the air to see if it could fly, I doubt as many people would be so violently opposed to his actions. He's a footballer; his feet are not as clumsy as the average internet high-horse rider.
HAHAHA 26 DOLLARS HAHAHHAA
You can buy a house in Colombia for $26.
I scrolled through the comments to see if anyone else thought that was funny haha It is.
I know right? no wonder he doesn't bother defending himself...
HANG THIS MURDERER!!!
You are dumn we should hang you it is just a owl
OWL KILLER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! GIVE HIM LIFE IN PRISON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
WHAT! That owl-killer should be suspended into a tank filled with angry hungry owls and pecked to DEATH!
I owe my life to an owl. I was walking down the street once and all of a sudden some punks pulled up to me in a beat-up pinto and started firing! I was shot 25 times in the face! As I lay on the ground near death, a pink pygmy owl swooped down from the heavens, flew into the car, and pecked the living daylights out of those latin kings! The owl then flew over to me and bandaged my wounds, sang me to sleep and carried me off to the hospital on his tiny wings.
I forever owe my life to that owl...really ALL owls are in my debt.
*tear*
I'm with Zero10, $26? Moreno makes that in a matter of seconds while on the field.
@John Murkin – Maybe he should switch to becoming an internet fairy like you? This guys is a punk for what he did but labelling all soccer players, let me guess you are American right? Easy to tell from your stupid remark and bad spelling. See how I did that, you can generalize and so can I, not hard to do and not very bright.
It's good to know that you're doing the exact same thing as the troll before you did. Blanket labeling all Americans is the same thing. So therefore, you are just as idiotic as the troll before. I suggest you think about your words before spewing them onto the internet.
wel me american and me bomb ur house
And Noel is clearly and idiot as well. It's pretty clear from his post that he was demonstrating that the generalization of an entire group of people is contemptable at best. Next time try reading the whole post before sticking your foot in your mouth.
GSA
"I'm with Zero10, $26? Moreno makes that in a matter of seconds while on the field.
@John Murkin – Maybe he should switch to becoming an internet fairy like you? This guys is a punk for what he did but labelling all soccer players, let me guess you are American right? Easy to tell from your stupid remark and bad spelling. See how I did that, you can generalize and so can I, not hard to do and not very bright."
Um, if Americans can't spell and are stupid, how come you spelled "labeling" wrong? Brain dead gerbil.
Tlang, it is "an" idiot. Please use it right if you are going to call someone an idiot (especially in a long string of people calling each other idiots).
HEY! What do you have against brain-dead gerbils? JERK!
Noel Hollis- i suggest you look up sarcasm, which he so much as came out and TOLD you he was using to make a point.
If you look at the video you can see he was just trying to get "it" off the field. I don't think the dude even knew what it was. There was just some crap in the field and he kicked it to get off. Who expects a bird to be on the field in the first place. The team should have been penalized for to many players on the field
I'm thinking I have to agree. The kick is not a hard one, and the kicking action of his foot pretty much scooped the bird up. The bird getting hit with the ball at speed was more of an issue, I think. And if you pay attention, the bird is laying face-down on the field, which is a bit odd for an owl to begin with.
1. Why was the bird on the field? Is this normal, they put the bird out on the field and expect everybody to move around it?
2. It's not the bird's fault. The people who put it on the field are the idiots.
3. I hope this guy gets a good a– pounding every night in prison. Jerk.
Joe, did you bother reading the article? "wins the ball from him and clears it, poorly, hitting the owl that had landed on the field." Nobody "put" the owl on the field. It was flying around and "landed on the field"...
I believe it is normal for animals to be running around everywhere in South America.
I couldnt agree more. The owl was one of the teams mascot. The team is/was responsible for it.
Who in their correct mind would let any form of bird or animal lose on a soccer or any other sports field and then complain about it getting hurt or killed.
The person responsible for it being lose during the game is at fault for it getting killed.
The player was obviously wrong for "kicking it up to see if it could fly". The fine should obviously be much higher.
I guess this guy is lucky the other team didn't have a lion as their mascot. Kicking a lion would not end well.
Dan, the owl wasn't a "mascot." It just happened to live in the stadium, and was considered a good luck charm. I don't blame Home Depot because birds get trapped in there and end up living in the rafters. In this case, the owl probably just made its nest in the stadium, due to it being both outdoors AND a great shelter. It was probably so used to the noise that it no longer felt threatened by the action on the field, so didn't stay away from it. It's unfortunate, but I don't think anyone in particular was to blame for the owl getting into harm's way.
If I was an owl, I would be pretty cheesed off right now...
Since I am not, I am going to ahead and eat my bologna sandwich.
Good night.
Clearly, that was a fowl.
Okay, now that was funny Madibaman!
"Who in their correct mind would let any form of bird or animal lose on a soccer or any other sports field and then complain about it getting hurt or killed."
Wasn't the team from a 3rd world country? Lower your expectations.
This was a stupid and terrible thing that he did but really the owl shouldn't have been there in the first place. He first got hit with the ball, which could have caused injury, or he could have been over sedated by the vet clinic. I'm not in any way excusing his actions, I'm just saying it wasn't necessarily his fault that the bird died.
I'm sure they'll put up a sign to warn future owls.
i shall kick this guy–to see if he can fly.
but in defense to this freak: if they owl was ok when this hospital got him, and had no fractures, he probably died from the sedation he received. i'm not sure, but i would guess that owls weren't built to handle medications very well. if the thing was ok but stressed out, how about letting it go?
columbians–not owl experts. give them a kilo, they know what to do. give em an owl, it will die.
Columbia? what's that?
And I also apologize for using "he", "him" and "his" too much. I suppose I should have used "it" in reference to the bird.
If soccer has reached where players need animals to win, then bring animals to play the game!
Put him in Jail so people kick his ass the same way he kick the owl's. Metete con alguien que se pueda defender, cobarde!
English dude, English.
Are you all that retarded to miss that 50,000 pesos is nowhere near 26 dollars. Its $4,139 as of today. What tard wrote this
sry boss, columbian pesos to american dollars is 1 pesos = .0005 dollars, so actually the math is fine.
ouch, ill be leaving now
There may very well be a "tard" among us. JK Mr. Tim.
Tim is actually correct. The average conversion is around 13 pesos to one dollar, the current market is .08 dollars to a peso. The fine is actually 4139.25
(Was trying to be technical, hit enter and failed at irony of peso to peso) Seola=fail today.
In Mexican Pesos, the fine would be around 5k...But in colombian pesos is $26. There's a difference between pesos and colombian pesos.
Yeah, you should leave you knothead! Spread the word to end the word..
Dirtbag.