(Fwd) Bald Eagle Killer Fined, Sentenced
Norm Saunders (osprey@ARI.Net)
Wed, 11 Mar 1998 18:56:26 -0500
I thought this might be of interest....
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For immediate release for further information, contact Rick
Giovengo at 302-653-9152 March 10, 1998 or Diana Weaver at
413-253-8329
Bald Eagle Killer Fined, Sentenced
Saying that he "essentially assassinated the Nation's symbol," U.S.
District Court Judge Mary Pat Trostle sentenced Douglas Sipple, 53, of
Georgetown, Del., to six months of home detention, 400 hours of
community service, five years probation and assessed more than $25,000
in restitution and fines for poisoning a bald eagle with the pesticide
Furadan in April 1997. Trostle handed the sentence down Thursday in
Wilmington.
The eagle was released in New Jersey and killed in Delaware, so
$20,000 of the restitution Sipple was ordered to pay will be split
between New Jersey Fish, Game and Wildlife and the Delaware Nongame
Fund.
Sipple pleaded guilty in October last year to violating the Endangered
Species Act. Bald eagles are protected under the Act with a
threatened designation, meaning that the species could become
endangered and face possible extinction. Trostle said that Sipple was
motivated by greed and had "created an atmosphere of fear" in the
community by poisoning domestic pets and wildlife, not considering the
effect of his actions and the emotional cost to the community.
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service special agents arrested Sipple at his
farm during a raid with Delaware fish and wildlife agents on the farm
and Sipple's father's home in July last year. State agents had been
investigating Sipple for more than two years, after they began finding
dead animals poisoned with Furadan. Among those dead were a turkey
vulture and a red-tailed hawk.
Sipple pleaded guilty in 1994 to a state charge of illegally
pole-trapping hawks. He was fined for that offense.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Edmund Falgowski of Wilmington successfully
prosecuted this case.
-FWS-