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Farmer Faced Jail And $200,000 Fine For ‘Eagle Crime’
A farmer is being fined $1,500 by the US government essentially because her backhoe broke down. The farmer, Debra Dwelly, was slapped with the fine because of events that were far beyond her control.
Her “crime”? Leaving horse carcasses on her property for too long. What’s worse is that Dwelly could have faced fines of up to $200,000 and a year in federal prison for violating the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act and another federal law.
Tragedy leads to fine
Dwelly’s problems began in March 2013, when two horses on her property near Winlock in Washington state became very ill. The horses were suffering so badly that they had to be euthanized by a vet. Dwelly described the horses as old and crippled.
Dwelly and a friend planned to use a backhoe to bury the horses the same day. Unfortunately, the backhoe broke down so the horses’ bodies were left lying out on the ground, where seven eagles fed on them. The eagles were apparently sickened by sodium pentobarbital, a drug that veterinarians use to euthanize sick animals.
“We never, ever thought we were endangering wildlife at all,” Dwelly, an animal lover who runs a well-known horse rescue operation said, according to the local Daily-News newspaper.
Source: http://www.offthegridnews.com/2014/02/19/farmer-faced-jail-and-200000-fine-for-eagle-crime/
