Updated: November 8, 2024 Published: November 8, 2024

Federal prosecutors recommend that an Alaskan fisherman is serving six months in prison, paying a $25,000 fine and being banned from commercial fishing for a year after he lied about his fishing catches and tried to kill an endangered sperm whale.

Dugan Paul Daniels pleaded guilty to a federal felony earlier this year, and prosecutors released their sentencing recommendation on Tuesday.

According to court documents, Daniels became enraged in March 2020 when a whale began taking fish from his longline gear and damaging his equipment.

This type of behavior has been seen for decades off the coast of Alaska, but prosecutors say this is the first time in Alaska that a fisherman has tried to kill a whale in retaliation and may be the first time nationally.

(Previous reporting: Decades ago, walleyes learned how to attack fishermen’s black cod lines. Now, an Alaskan man is accused of killing one.)

“Daniel’s behavior demonstrates a complete lack of respect for whales and the laws that protect them,” prosecutors wrote.

According to messages sent on his GPS unit, Daniels directed a crew member to shoot the whale, tried to hit it with his fishing boat, then tried to kill it by overturning his fishing gear while the whale was caught in it.

In one message, Daniels wrote that he “wished he had a cannon to blow the hell out of the water.”

After one of the recipients of his message warned Daniels that killing a whale was a federal crime, he replied, “The feds are closed and I don’t care.”

This was a reference to the emergency closure of offices due to COVID-19 in March 2020 at the time of the messages.

Federal officials don’t know if Daniels successfully killed the whale. No dead sperm whales were seen in Southeast Alaska at the time of the incident. Regardless, prosecutors say, the incident qualifies as the “taking” of an endangered whale in violation of the Endangered Species Act.

Prosecutors are asking that, in addition to the fine and jail time, Daniels be sentenced to three years of community service and supervised release. If he resumes commercial fishing after the one-year ban, prosecutors are asking that he be subject to additional monitoring.

The sentence was forwarded to Magistrate Matthew McCrary Scoble for review.

Originally Posted by Alaska Beaconan independent, nonpartisan news organization covering Alaska state government.