Fisherman frustrated with dolphins shot and poisoned them in Florida, feds say
A Panama City commercial fisherman shot bottlenose dolphins, and fed them poisoned baitfish, after federal prosecutors in Florida said he “grew frustrated” with the federally protected species eating snapper caught by his clients.
Now Zackery Brandon Barfield, 31, has been sentenced to 30 days in prison over killing the dolphins and poisoning them with a toxic pesticide in 2022 and 2023, according to a May 23 news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Florida. The judge also ordered him to pay a $51,000 fine.
In hurting the dolphins, Barfield, whose first name is spelled “Zachary” in court filings, also harmed the Gulf of Mexico’s waters by polluting the ecosystem with Methomyl, the pesticide he used to poison the marine mammals for months, prosecutors said.
The Gulf of Mexico was renamed the Gulf of America in one of the first executive orders issued Jan. 20 by President Donald Trump.
Acting Assistant Attorney General Adam Gustafson, of the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division, said in a statement that Barfield, a “longtime charter and commercial fishing captain,” knew “the regulations protecting dolphins, yet he killed them anyway — once in front of children.”
Barfield’s criminal defense attorney, Nathan Robert Prince, didn’t immediately return McClatchy News’ request for comment May 23.
Bottlenose dolphins are protected by the Marine Mammal Protection Act and the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act.
Barfield violated both laws during charter fishing trips, according to prosecutors.
He first poisoned dolphins in the summer of 2022, after prosecutors said he saw them eat red snapper “from the lines of his charter fishing clients.”
Barfield put Methomyl inside baitfish to feed dolphins surfacing by his boat, according to prosecutors. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has restrictions for using Methomyl, which can affect the nervous system in dolphins, people and other mammals.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Southeast Regional Office, in a May 12 statement filed in Barfield’s case, wrote that the “impacts” of the pesticide are “painful and induce suffering to mammals such as bottlenose dolphins.”
“How quickly or how slowly the animal would suffer and potentially die would depend heavily on the dosage administered,” NOAA said.
While not considered endangered or threatened in the U.S., bottlenose dolphins are “vulnerable” to a variety of “stressors,” including some caused by people, according to NOAA. Human-related risks to the species include boat strikes, commercial and recreational fisheries and “illegal feeding and harassment.”
Barfield, according to prosecutors, was aware the pesticide was dangerous to not only the dolphins and other creatures, but the surrounding environment.
As the captain of fishing trips in December 2022 and summer 2023, Barfield grabbed a 12-gauge shotgun upon seeing dolphins feeding on snapper attached to his clients’ fishing lines, prosecutors said.
“On both occasions,” prosecutors said Barfield shot the dolphins.
One bottlenose dolphin died instantly, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Other times, Barfield shot dolphins, but “did not immediately kill” them, including when he captained a trip with two young children of elementary school age on his boat, prosecutors said.
On another trip, he shot dolphins with more than a dozen fishermen aboard his vessel, according to prosecutors.
Barfield was sentenced to prison on three counts of poisoning and shooting dolphins in violation of federal laws, and to one year of supervised release, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.
He pleaded guilty to the charges, court documents show.
Acting U.S. Attorney Michelle Spaven called Barfield’s actions “selfish” denouncing them as “serious crimes against public resources, threats to the local ecosystem, and a devastating harm to a highly intelligent and charismatic species.”
This story was originally published May 23, 2025 at 11:56 AM with the headline "Fisherman frustrated with dolphins shot and poisoned them in Florida, feds say."
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