Two Pennsylvania farmers have been found guilty of poisoning over two dozen migratory birds with a restricted substance.
Robert Yost and Jacob Reese, located in Econ Valley, Pennsylvania, were found guilty in January of three charges related to poisoning 17 Canada geese, 10 red-winged blackbirds and one mallard duck, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
The conviction is unusual, said Francesca Cuthbert, a retired professor in the Department of Fisheries, Wildlife and Conservation Biology at the University of Minnesota.
“In all the cases across the country, I think it’s pretty rare,” said Cuthbert, who has a 40-year career and a special interest in migratory birds. “It has got to be discovered. It has to be reported. It has to be, you know, deemed important.”
Yost and Reese were found guilty of violating the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act, federal officials said. They face up to 13 months in prison and a fine of $31,000.
It is not common knowledge that birds protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act are more protected than any other animals, Cuthbert said.
“It’s illegal to possess anything about them,” she said.
Keeping a migratory bird’s carcass is illegal even if you weren’t the one to kill it, Cuthbert said. “Can’t have their feathers, can’t have their nests, can’t have their eggs, can’t take their babies and raise the babies. It’s a very, very strong law.”
Yost and Reese poisoned the birds after they shot towards them and tried to use leg traps to remove them, according to the U.S. Department of Justice, The farmers then burned the bag where the laced corn was being held and lied about spreading the corn near the soybean field.
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