Three Polish divers faced a police investigation this Thursday for possible illegal fishing and animal abuse after a news photo showed them plying a freshly caught pike with champagne at an outdoor New Year's party.
"They may have committed offences of poaching and maltreating a fish," said Maria Niedziolka of the National Fishing Authority, which notified police of the incident.
The picture in Nowa Trybuna daily showed three frogmen neck-deep in a lake, with one of them tipping a bottle of cheap Russian bubbly into the fish's open mouth.
One of the divers told news agency PAP that they had found the pike half-dead and wanted to "restore it to consciousness by treating it with champagne."
It was not clear whether the fish survived. Police said it would not be needed as evidence in the investigation.
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