Wildlife Trade and Poaching

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    Man Who Killed Hundreds of Eagles and Hawks Gets Nearly 4 Years in Prison

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    Travis John Branson was part of a conspiracy that killed 3,600 birds, prosecutors said. He also trafficked and sold bird parts on the black market.A Washington man who killed hundreds of eagles and hawks in Montana that he later helped traffic and sell on the black market was sentenced to nearly four years in prison on Thursday, prosecutors said.From 2015 to 2021, the man, Travis John Branson, 49, of Cusick, Wash., traveled to the Flathead Indian Reservation in western Montana to help kill hundreds of birds in a “killing spree,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Montana said. In addition to his sentence of three years and 10 months in federal prison, Mr. Branson was ordered to pay $777,250 in restitution, prosecutors said.“Branson went on self-described ‘killing sprees’ for thousands of eagles and hawks,” Jesse Laslovich, the U.S. attorney for the District of Montana, said in a statement. Mr. Laslovich added that Mr. Branson “butchered” the birds “and sold the parts and feathers for profit on the black market.”Mr. Branson, who pleaded guilty to conspiracy and trafficking charges in March, killed at least 118 eagles and 107 hawks himself, according to investigators who traced the killings to Mr. Branson through text messages. In total, Mr. Branson worked with others to kill about 3,600 birds, prosecutors said.In December, prosecutors indicted Mr. Branson and a co-conspirator, Simon Paul, who at one point lived in St. Ignatius, Mont. The two worked together to shoot, traffic and sell hundreds of birds, according to court records. Mr. Paul was also charged with conspiracy and wildlife trafficking charges in December but was a fugitive as of Thursday, the U.S. attorney’s office said.Court records quoted text messages and cited PayPal transactions that showed that Mr. Branson had sent photos and received text messages and payment for a golden eagle tail feather set.“Got that thang from Simon,” a buyer texted Mr. Branson, referring to feathers Mr. Paul had sent. “And the mirror feathers. Tnks.”In March 2021, law enforcement officers stopped Mr. Branson and recovered from his vehicle a golden eagle’s severed feet connected to long, obsidian black talons and feathers. Mr. Branson and Mr. Paul also killed deer to lure eagles to the area, court records said.From 2009 until 2021, Mr. Branson made between $180,000 and $360,000 by selling eagles’ feathers and parts on the black market, prosecutors said. How much Mr. Branson sold between 2009 until 2015 was not immediately clear.Lawyers for Mr. Branson and Mr. Paul did not immediately respond to emails requesting comment.Bald eagles, which were among the birds Mr. Branson and others killed, are revered in the United States as a national symbol.“We are going to feel the impacts of the Flathead Reservation’s raptor loss for years to come,” Mike Dolson, the chairman of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, said in a statement. “Eagles are not only a treasured and important part of the Reservation’s ecosystem, but they also have a profound place in C.S.K.T. cultural and spiritual practices.” More

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      3 Idaho Big-Game Guides Led Illegal Mountain Lion Hunts, U.S. Says

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      The three face federal charges for leading hunts as part of an unlicensed outfitting business separate from their employer, federal prosecutors said.Three big-game hunting guides in Idaho are facing federal charges that they illegally led mountain lion hunts in national forests and then shipped some of at least a dozen carcasses out of state, according to federal prosecutors.All three people were licensed guides in the state and employed by a legal outfitter, but they also booked clients for mountain lion hunts separately from their employer starting in December 2021, the U.S. attorney’s office in Idaho said in a news release.The three guides, Chad Michael Kulow, 44, Andrea May Major, 44, and LaVoy Linton Eborn, 47, led paying clients on hunts through Caribou-Targhee National Forest in southeast Idaho and the Bridger-Teton National Forest in western Wyoming as part of an unlicensed business, the prosecutors said. Their groups killed 12 mountain lions from December 2021 to February 2022, prosecutors said.It’s legal to hunt mountain lions in Idaho for most of the year with proper licensing. The three guides are accused of running an unlicensed outfitter in a side business and not following federal and state reporting requirements of the mountain lion kills.At least three of the mountain lions killed during these hunts were shipped to Texas without being presented to Idaho Fish and Game, the state agency that oversees hunting, prosecutors said. Hunters in Idaho must report and present any mountain lions to the state agency within 10 days of their being killed, according to its hunting season manual. The three hunters also used false business information in their big game mortality reports, which is required by the state agency, prosecutors said.The three were indicted in August on several charges, including conspiracy and violating the Lacey Act, a federal law that prohibits transporting animals that are illegally taken or possessed. All three were arrested last week and have pleaded not guilty to the charges.Lawyers representing the three defendants did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Thursday.The most serious charges the three face carry a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.Nicholas Arrivo, the managing attorney for animal protection law at the Humane Society of the United States, said that the Lacey Act was “vigorously” enforced and has been around since 1900. The law, among the oldest related to wildlife in the country, is meant to prevent illegal animal trafficking, he said.Kristin Combs, executive director of Wyoming Wildlife Advocates, said that while most hunters in her state hunted for food, she had noticed that wildlife was increasingly “valued in a very different way.”“This is totally trophy hunting,” she said. “No one is out there, like, eating mountain lion.”She said that trophy hunting — the hunting of animals to display their bodies rather than for food — had increased in recent years.But Ms. Combs added that she did not often hear about outfitters or licensed guides leading illegal hunts.“Mostly,” she said, “outfitters and guides have licenses and want to keep them.” More

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      Rancher Gets 6 Months in Prison for Scheme to Create Giant Sheep Hybrid

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      Prosecutors said the Montanan illegally used tissue from a sheep from Central Asia and the testicles from a bighorn sheep to make large hybrids that he could sell at premium prices.An 81-year-old Montana rancher was sentenced to six months in federal prison on Monday for running a nearly decade-long scheme in which he used parts from protected wildlife to create a giant hybrid species of wild sheep to sell at premium prices, federal prosecutors said.The man, Arthur Schubarth, of Vaughn, Mont., illegally used tissue from a Marco Polo argali sheep from Central Asia and the testicles of a bighorn sheep native to the Rocky Mountains to make large hybrids of sheep that he could sell at high prices to shooting preserves, particularly in Texas, federal prosecutors said in a news release.Mr. Schubarth pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Montana in March to two felony wildlife crimes: conspiracy to violate the Lacey Act and substantively violating the Lacey Act, which prohibits the trafficking of illegally taken wildlife.The Associated Press reported that Judge Brian Morris of the U.S. District Court for the District of Montana said that he had weighed Mr. Schubarth’s age and lack of criminal record to fashion a sentence that would discourage others from attempting to “change the genetic makeup of the creatures.”Mr. Schubarth’s sentence includes three years of supervised release, according to court documents. He was also ordered to pay a $20,000 fine to the Lacey Act Reward Fund, a $4,000 payment to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and a $200 special assessment.Before sentencing, Mr. Schubarth told the judge, “I will have to work the rest of my life to repair everything I’ve done,” The A.P. reported.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Handbag Designer Nancy Gonzalez Sentenced to 18 Months for Smuggling Exotic Skins

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      Nancy Gonzalez, whose clients included Britney Spears and Sofia Vergara, smuggled purses from her native Colombia to the United States using couriers. She will serve 18 months.The handbag designer Nancy Gonzalez built a cult following among celebrities and the South American superrich thanks to her use of brilliantly dyed precious skins. Once one of the largest purveyors of crocodile skin accessories in the world, her namesake brand sold totes and clutches in lime green alligator and lavender python skin for thousands of dollars, often through big-name retailers like Saks and Bergdorf Goodman.Now Ms. Gonzalez, 71, is facing considerable time in bright orange coveralls.On Monday, she was sentenced to 18 months in prison after pleading guilty in a Miami federal court to charges of smuggling hundreds of handbags made from the skins of protected wildlife into the United States from her native Colombia.Ms. Gonzalez, whose full name is Nancy Tereza Gonzalez de Barberi and whose business was incorporated into a luxury handbag company called Gzuniga Limited, was arrested in 2022 in Cali, Colombia, and then extradited to the United States last August. She admitted to recruiting as many as 40 couriers to carry up to four products at a time on commercial flights to be used at New York Fashion Week and industry events or to be sold in the Gzuniga showroom between February 2016 and April 2019.Prosecutors said that the handbags and purses, made from the hides of caiman alligators and pythons bred in captivity, were worth as much as $2 million. The designer’s lawyers said that the pieces were mostly samples and cost about $140 each, with only about 1 percent lacking the proper authorization to be brought into the United States.The trade in caimans and pythons is not banned but is strictly regulated under the rules of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, of which both the United States and Colombia are signatories. According to prosecutors, Ms. Gonzalez never secured the necessary import permits from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service required by regulators.“It’s all driven by the money,” Thomas Watts-Fitzgerald of the U.S. attorney’s office in Miami, said on Monday. “If you want to deter the conduct, you want the cocaine kingpin not the person in the field.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Man Pleads Guilty in ‘Killing Spree’ of Bald Eagles in Montana

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      Travis John Branson of Washington State was indicted last year for illegally hunting and selling the birds. A co-defendant is still on the run.One of two men accused of shooting 3,600 birds in Montana, including bald and golden eagles, in an illegal “killing spree” pleaded guilty to taking part in a scheme to sell the dead birds on the black market, federal prosecutors said on Wednesday.In a plea deal, Travis John Branson, 48, of Washington State, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy, two counts of illegally trafficking bald and golden eagles, and one count of violating the Lacey Act, a federal law prohibiting the sale of illegally acquired wildlife, the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Montana said.Mr. Branson faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine for the conspiracy and Lacey Act charges, prosecutors said.In December, a grand jury indicted Mr. Branson and his co-defendant Simon Paul, 42, of Montana, on 15 counts, most of them for illegal trafficking of eagles. Prosecutors agreed to drop 11 of those counts for Mr. Branson, according to the plea agreement.Mr. Paul, who did not appear at his arraignment, prosecutors said, is still on the run. His sentencing is set for July 31 at the U.S. District Court in Montana, prosecutors said.From January 2015 to March 2021, the two men routinely met on the prairies of the Flathead Indian Reservation in western Montana to hunt eagles that they would later sell, prosecutors said. Mr. Branson would travel from Washington State to meet Mr. Paul on the reservation, where he lived, prosecutors said.The men sold the eagles’ wings, tails and, on one occasion, a whole eagle, according to the indictment. Prosecutors did not say how much money the men made from sales, noting only that the bird parts were sold for “significant sums of cash.”At one point they devised a hunting strategy in which they set out a deer carcass to lure in the birds, according to the indictment, which also quoted text messages between Mr. Branson and buyers.In one message, Mr. Branson told a buyer that he was “on a killing spree” to stock up on eagle tail feathers. In another, he wrote that he was out “committing felonies,” according to the indictment.He also seemed to acknowledge in a separate message that shipping the birds internationally was illegal, prosecutors said.Mr. Branson’s public defender, Andrew J. Nelson, could not immediately be reached for comment on Wednesday evening. Messages left at a phone number and sent to an email address listed for Mr. Branson were immediately returned.A lawyer listed in court records for Mr. Paul declined to comment.The killing of bald eagles was seen as particularly flagrant in a country where the bird is the national symbol and was once considered an endangered species.It was unclear how many of the 3,600 birds prosecutors said the men killed were eagles. Clair J. Howard, a spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney’s office, declined to comment. More

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      More Than 100 Animals Seized From Long Island Home

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      Animal welfare authorities say the animals were being illegally held and included a South American ostrich, a giant African snail, two prairie dogs and an endangered tiger salamander.Animal welfare authorities seized more than 100 animals from a Long Island home this week — including a South American ostrich, a giant African snail, two prairie dogs and an endangered tiger salamander — after a tip they received about exotic animals led them to their owner’s doorstep.“He was running a pop-up circus,” said Detective Matt Roper, director of law enforcement for the Nassau County SPCA. “Bringing these animals out in public and letting children play with these animals.”Detective Roper said the animals’ owner was given court summonses for several state and local violations, including endangering the public and housing and possessing endangered species. Federal authorities are also investigating, he said.Detective Roper emphasized that there were no signs that the animals had been abused or neglected.“They were all cared for,” Detective Roper said. “They were just in violation of being held or kept as either pets or for exhibition purposes.”Detective Roper, who declined to name the animals’ owner because the investigation is continuing, said that on Tuesday the authorities took 104 animals from the basement and backyard of the house, which is in North Bellmore.Humane Long Island, an animal advocacy organization that took custody of dozens of the animals that were seized, identified their owner as Matthew Spohrer, 32. He was issued 30 violations relating to illegal possession of animals, the group said in a news release.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More