Esteban Parra

The News Journal

A 48-year-old Canadian father was arrested by Rehoboth Beach police amid allegations he allowed his daughter to bait and kill a gull on the beach.

Officers responded to the beach in the area of Wilmington Avenue about 1:45 p.m. on Wednesday after receiving complaints of a girl attempting to hit gulls with a shovel, said Lt. Jaime B. Riddle, a police spokesman.

City officers who responded to the beach interviewed witnesses and learned that a teenage girl was placing food in a hole dug in the sand to lure gulls to land. When the gulls tried to retrieve the food, the girl swung at them with a plastic shovel, police said.

A dead gull was found in a nearby trash can, thrown there by the girl's father, Christian Lesieur, 48, of Quebec, according to Riddle.

"Witnesses told police that while the teenager swung at the seagulls, Lesieur laughed," Riddle said. "One witness told police that he approached Lesieur and told him that his daughter should not be attempting to hit the seagulls and he laughed at him."

When police contacted Lesieur on the beach he was drinking alcohol, Riddle said, and while in custody, made multiple jokes in regards to the incident.

"While his daughter was crying, Lesieur proceeded to make comments in regards to her spending the night in jail, causing her to become even more emotionally upset," Riddle said.

Lesieur was charged with one count of endangering the welfare of a child, a misdemeanor, and released on $500 unsecured bail.

All species of gulls found in Delaware are protected under the federal Migratory Bird Treaty Act. The federal act makes it "illegal for anyone to take, possess, import, export, transport, sell, purchase, barter, or offer for sale, purchase, or barter, any migratory bird, or the parts, nests, or eggs of such a bird." The exception is with a permit issued by federal officials.

State fish and wildlife enforcement officers were also contacted, but Sgt. John McDerby, a spokesman for the state wildlife enforcement agency said "no action was taken with the child other than a written warning" to track the incident.

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McDerby said officers felt "the child was not under the best influence or guidance of the father in the incident."

Federal officials did not get involved, said Terri Edwards, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service Northeast Region, of which Delaware is a part.

Contact Esteban Parra at (302) 324-2299, eparra@delawareonline.com or Twitter @eparra3.