[nelsonic]

A $7,700 fine when they have 5000 queen ants with each potentially being worth $220 is a slap on the wrist! Meanwhile the 5000 colonies the queen ants were extracted from will collapse and the knock-on effect to the ecosystems will be catastrophic for decades! Ants act as keystone species by engineering ecosystems, regulating populations, and fostering biodiversity. The judge in this case is clearly not a biologist/entomologist and doesn’t understand the need to send a clear message when sentencing.