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Federal prosecutors allege the two men killed over 3,600 birds,
among them an unspecified number of protected bald and golden
eagles, from January 2015 to March 2021, often on or near the
Flathead Indian Reservation in western Montana.
A federal grand jury in Montana last week indicted Simon Paul
and Travis John Branson on charges of unlawful trafficking of
bald eagles, conspiracy and violating the Lacey Act concerning
trafficking of wildlife.
The pair face up to 11 years in prison and fines of $275,000
each if convicted on all charges.
Court documents did not list legal representation for Paul and
Branson. Calls to phone numbers listed for Branson were not
answered. No phone numbers were found for Paul.
Prosecutors allege Paul and Branson would hunt the birds on the
reservation and elsewhere.
"The defendants then illegally sold the eagles on the black
market for significant sums of cash across the United States and
elsewhere," the indictment read, without specifying how much
money.
Investigators followed the message traffic between Paul, Branson
and the buyers.
In one message, Branson wrote to a buyer that he was "on a
killing spree" and "out here committing felonies."
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says the bald eagle nearly
went extinct in the mid 1900s because of habitat destruction and
the contamination of fish, its primary food source, by the
insecticide DDT, which made the eagles' eggs thin and easily
breakable.
Congress made killing bald eagles illegal in 1940. The birds
were placed on the endangered species list in 1967. They were
removed from all endangered and threatened species lists in
2007.
(Reporting by Brad Brooks in Longmont, Colorado; editing by
Donna Bryson and Lincoln Feast)
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