June 1 – Ruthann Weist stands inside the Portland Police Bureau on Middle Street, one hand on her hip and a sturdy black phone pressed to her ear.
“I’ve been dead for at least a week,” she says, then pauses to listen. She nods. “Yes, we should do this at high tide. I have a tarp we can use, or a body bag. It should be big enough to hold a dolphin.”
She’s on the phone with the Portland harbormaster, planning an elaborate recovery of a dead dolphin that’s floating off the coast of Little Diamond Island. It’s an unusual problem in Portland, where dolphins rarely make it into the waters of Casco Bay.
Weist has been receiving constant calls about the animal. People are upset because it is starting to decompose near the coast. It’s disgusting. This smells bad. This is upsetting your children.
She’s putting together a plan to get rid of the body and thinks today is the day.
Weist, who goes by Ruu, is Portland’s only animal control officer. The 36-year-old is part of the police department and is in charge of dealing with any “animal issues” that arise within the city limits, which include the Casco Bay Islands.
The work is as broad as it seems. She responds to reports of dogs trapped in hot cars and wild animals entering homes. It issues fines for violating leash laws, for nuisance and for dangerous dogs. She responds to calls about rabid animals, which she says are usually not actually rabid. Occasionally, she has to make the decision to euthanize.
In the summer, she is often swamped with calls, driving, boating, and walking all over town responding to any animal crisis that may arise. But things are slower in winter. Some days she spends hours just patrolling parks looking for off-leash dogs.
“It’s different every day,” says Weist.
A SUB-DOG
When Weist gets off the phone with the harbormaster, she quickly walks to her van.
“We want this to be done,” she says, walking through the police station doors into the sunny day. She puts her sunglasses over her eyes. Weist almost never sits still. While walking, she gets a call about a squirrel stuck in a chimney. She picks up another one about a missing cat in Barron Center.
Your agenda for the day continues to grow.
A large dog ran over an elderly man on Great Diamond Island, sending him to hospital. She needs to issue a subpoena. She has the owner’s photo and name, but has no idea where she lives. She also has an ongoing animal abuse case where the owner is trying to get the dog back.
Weist has been at this job for eight years. At age 28, she decided to move from the Midwest for the position because, she says, “I needed a job and this one was open.”
“Ruu is an exceptional member of the police department,” Rich Bianculli wrote in an email. He works closely with Weist as the department’s neighborhood attorney. “Her main concern at all times is the safety and well-being of the animals and she is willing to go above and beyond.”
Weist has a dry sense of humor, but his love for animals is obvious. His khaki backpack is covered in patches. One of them says: “Dinosaur Eats Man”. She wears a sterling silver wolf ring with glow-in-the-dark eyes.
“To me, it’s a coyote, not a wolf,” she says. She thinks coyotes are misunderstood and loves an underdog.
Sometimes she gets calls from people worried that a coyote is following them on a trail, and she advises them on what to do. Typically, Weist says, coyotes follow people in an effort to “escort” them away from their den. They mean no harm, she says, but people are scared.
“People think they kill pets, that’s why they’re hated. But that’s not true. They eat rodents more than anything else,” she says.
A DAY IN THE LIFE
Around 10:30 a.m., Weist walks to the courthouse to pick up paperwork from the abuse case, which she needs to turn in to the animal shelter in Westbrook. While leafing through paperwork, she talks to Julie Webber, a supervisor at the district attorney’s office.
“There should be an animal court,” says Weist. “We have a family court and stuff. We need one for animals.”
“Of all the cases I work on, the ones involving animals are the most emotionally charged,” says Webber, nodding.
Weist hands more serious cases, such as animal abuse, to the district attorney for prosecution. But things like fines for dangerous dogs go to Bianculli, the neighborhood prosecutor, who resolves minor disputes, usually without criminal charges.
“Address quality of life issues”, is how Bianculli says. This includes graffiti, littering, disorderly conduct and most dog violations. He may issue minor tickets and fines or ban certain dogs from the city.
When Weist leaves the courtroom a few minutes later, she is focused on her biggest project of the day, recovering the dolphins.
She gets into her van, packed with crates, carriers, pet first aid supplies, a tarp, and two body bags, and drives to the port.
DOLPHIN RECOVERY
Kevin Battle, Portland harbormaster, is waiting for her in his office at the Portland Fish Pier. He and Weist sit in separate places around a table, and Battle takes out a pen and notebook.
“So let’s go to the dolphin. One boat will go one way. The other will go the other way,” says Battle, drawing the two boats next to the dolphin. “If it looks like the body bag will fit, we’ll put it in there. If not, we’ll end up using the tarp and see if we can wrap it up and then tow it.”
Weist nods.
Shortly after noon, she and Battle board a Boston whaling ship with their supplies. The battle rages on and Weist goes to work cutting the rope into two-foot pieces. She ties makeshift straps to the eyelets in the tarp. The dolphin is tied to an anchorage just off the coast of Little Diamond Island, about a 20-minute boat ride from the harbor.
“She looks swollen,” says Weist as they approach.
Battle warns everyone that it is possible for the dolphin to explode. She’s been decomposing for weeks and is probably full of gas. A baby dolphin is still attached to her body. She probably died giving birth, he says.
Deputy harbormaster Elizabeth Morrissey pulls up alongside Weist and Battle in the second boat, and the three get to work wrapping the dolphin in tarp and tying it to the side of Battle’s boat – they quickly determine that the body bag is not it was big enough.
There are some hiccups. The dolphin’s head slips off the tarp once and its dorsal fin begins to detach. His body is only loosely joined now, after weeks of decomposition, Weist says.
Eventually, the group manages to tie the makeshift sling to the side of the boat to be towed to shore.
“Don’t touch your face!” Morrissey calls the team as soon as the work is done. “Oh my god, that was disgusting.”
‘You don’t get to see that very often’
Weist planned to deliver the dolphin to the Spring Point Marina in South Portland, where the team agreed to use a boat lift to lift the 500-pound animal out of the water and into the back of a truck.
She made arrangements with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to turn over the dolphin to Drew Desjardins, who runs Mr. Drew and His Animals Too, a nonprofit family-run natural sciences and exotic rescue museum in Lewiston.
He plans to collect the animal’s skeleton for an exhibition.
“It will be a great addition,” says Desjardins. “We’re putting together an exhibit about water activities at the museum and we really want to expand that area into marine education, so we’re going to incorporate the dolphin into that.”
At the marina, a crowd gathers. The crew tries to get the dolphin onto the boat’s elevator handles. People take photos. A group of teenagers in neon T-shirts stand on a dock overlooking the marina. One covers the mouth. Another approaches.
“Is that a dolphin?” someone shouts from the boat.
“Yes,” says Weist, hands on hips.
She runs into Jen Marchigiani, who is picking up the dolphin for Desjardins, and helps her back the truck closer to the boat lift. Some people gasp as the dolphin is lifted into the air, its rotting, pockmarked belly illuminated by the sun. The smell is terrible. A girl on the pier chokes.
He falls into Marchigiani’s truck with a loud thud. She can’t close the back door.
“Go very slowly,” advises Weist.
As she walks away, the dolphin’s head bobbing on her back, Weist is already on the phone with the Maine State Police. She tells them not to worry if they get a call about a dolphin heading north on Interstate 95.
“It’s all honest,” she says over the phone.
On the boat ride back to Portland with Battle, Weist faces the next crisis. She didn’t have time before to drive to Westbrook with the paperwork from the animal abuse case, so she’ll go straight there from the Marina, she says.
As the boat approaches Portland Harbor, Weist notices something in the sky.
“Is that an osprey?” she says, pointing. “Yeah! Look, it’s diving.”
The bird goes down to the sea and then comes back up. After a few dives, a fish appears.
“Wow, there’s something,” says Weist. “You don’t get to see that very often.”
As Battle docks the boat, his eyes remain on the bird.
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