The "Roe vs. Finch" Story

Photo by Ad Crable of Lancaster Newspapers.

It was an ordinary day.  Checking the updates on Stormygirl in the local paper.  It was back in 2006 that Lancaster County, PA had a fierce rainstorm.  An Elizabethtown, PA woman's German Shepherd, outside after the storm, discovered a tiny, pink, fuzzy, soaked creature in the backyard ivy bed at the foot of a large spruce tree.  The dog warned it's master, Pati Mattrick, about it who brought it inside, placed it in an old aquarium made into an incubator with a heating pad under a linen napkin.  She named the tiny house finch Stormygirl.  Needless to say, she didn't know what to do so this Grandmother and pre-school teacher searched for worms and bugs, cut them into very small pieces and tried to feed them to the bird.  She checked with a wildlife rehabilitation shelter as to what she should do and was told the bird would likely not survive.  Well, it did!  She grew feathers and developed a singing voice on a diet of fruit and nuts.  The bird began following her around the house serenading her.  Just what Pati needed, since she was suffering depression because the last of her four daughters had just moved out of the house.  Now this might sound like a fairy tale, but it doesn't end like a fairy tale because it was illegal.  After four years a local newspaper reporter wrote a story about Pati and Stormygirl in the local newspaper and two days later a Pennsylvania Game Commissioner and three ARMED policemen arrived to take the bird.  Pati was not allowed to keep a house finch in her house.  The bird was protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty of 1918 and Pati was breaking that law.  The police had an awful time capturing the bird.  Pati later said, "As long as I live, I will never forget the sound of her screaming as the officers tried to catch her." She was told by the police as they were trying to capture the finch that if she resisted the FBI would come next.  After Pati lost Stormygirl, her depression deepened.  Boy, what a stink that created in Lancaster County.  And, one of Pati's biggest supporters was Lancaster County's District Attorney.  He said it was a gross misguided abuse of law enforcement discretion.  And to top that off it was just plain cruel.  He even had the law changed so that no other house finches would be captured by representatives of the police participating in search warrants.  And, it has been said that this whole debacle was the reason that the Pennsylvania Game Commission's executive director Carl Roe was asked to resign, which he did at the beginning of this year.  To top that off, after he was promised a $220,000 retirement bonus, Pennsylvnia Governor Tom Corbett said it was an illegal severance package, and demanded that the game commissioners rescind it or resign.  A few final notes about this story.  It was determined that Stormygirl was actually a male and is doing well in a  wildlife shelter, but Pati will not be getting her/him back.  She could have been charged with a Fifth Degree Summary which has a penalty of between $75 and $200, plus court costs.  It was someone's choice to order the search warrant to capture Stormygirl and he is now paying for it.  Kind of a bittersweet ending to this fairy tale for Pati.  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.