PYATT, Ark. (AP) – Federal and state wildlife authorities are asking for the general public’s assist in catching whoever may be accountable for the deaths of 4 bald eagles in Arkansas’ Marion County earlier this yr.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service final month put up a $5,000 reward for ideas that result in the arrest and conviction of those that killed the federally protected birds found Feb. 13 close to Pyatt, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported.
A joint investigation by the Arkansas Sport and Fish Fee and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service decided that the birds had been shot between mid-January and mid-February. Along with the eagles, authorities discovered red-tailed hawks, a home canine and white-tailed deer within the neighborhood that had additionally been shot and killed.
“There´s, I believe, proof that any individual most likely shot (the birds) from the street, however I don´t even know that they´re 100% sure of that,” mentioned Rob Finley, the Arkansas Sport and Fish commissioner for the world the place the eagles had been killed. “I do know that they did arrange just a little little bit of an operation to see if … the individuals ever got here again, however by no means did.”
Finley mentioned that’s when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service took the lead on the investigation.
Bald eagles are federally protected and if killed, violators might withstand a $250,000 advantageous and as much as two years in federal jail if convicted. Whereas protected, bald eagles are not thought of endangered. They had been faraway from the endangered listing in 2007.
“The bald eagles do migrate out and in of the state fairly a bit now,” Arkansas Sport and Fish Fee spokesperson Randy Zellers mentioned. “We do have nesting bald eagles within the state. However we (additionally) see an inflow of bald eagles each winter, primarily with the waterfowl migration. When the waterfowl come south, a variety of eagles will observe them down (to prey on).”
Anybody with details about the bald eagles killed in Marion County ought to contact the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service at (501) 513-4470 or the Arkansas Sport & Fish Fee at (833) 356-0824.
This text was first printed by The Each day Mail on 4 Could 2023. Lead Picture: FILE – A bald eagle flies over {a partially} frozen Des Moines River, Dec. 21, 2022, in Des Moines, Iowa. Federal and Arkansas state wildlife authorities are asking for the general public’s assist in catching whoever may be accountable for the deaths of 4 bald eagles in Arkansas’ Marion County in early 2023. (AP Picture/Charlie Neibergall, File).
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