A federal judge sentenced a Virginia duck hunter to a day in jail, two years’ probation and nearly $10,000 in fines for killing 20 bald eagles and hawks, state wildlife officials said.
William Custis Smith, 74, of Hallwood, built an impoundment on his property to attract ducks and other waterfowl for the 2023-24 hunting season. The Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources said Tuesday that it and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service found a pole trap meant to snare the predatory birds and a juvenile eagle that were poisoned.
Mr. Smith used the banned pesticide carbofuran, which “acts so quickly that nine times out of 10 when an eagle, hawk or whatever eats something, it acts so quickly that they die with whatever they’re eating still in their claws. … They have just a certain look about them, the body posture,” DWR Conservation Police Master Officer Brian Bratton said.
USFWS Special Agent Ken Dulik told Washington’s WTOP-FM that “when they go into convulsions, their tail and wings spread out and their head arches over the neck backward.”
Mr. Smith admitted to killing 20 mature and juvenile bald eagles as well as red-shouldered and red-tailed hawks and pleaded guilty to violations of the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act in court in March.
“He was killing the hawks and eagles because they were killing all the ducks he was attracting to his impoundment. It was the time of year when hawks are migrating through. And in very late winter, the food supply really gets short, so these birds are looking for prey. He was very aware it was illegal, but in his mind, the ends justified the means,” Officer Bratton said.
The charges against Mr. Smith are misdemeanors, according to court documents. Second violations of the act are felonies, USFWS says on its website.
