Bird poachers

[Chappy]

Did anyone read about the private fish hatchery in Sunderland, Mass that was poaching herons, and osprey also an eagle. You would think that those who manage hatcheries would have the most regard for nature on the whole. These guys saw only private gains, run more on the business side of things. The cheap way out of neglecting to put nets on the raceways may end up possibly costing them $15,000 per bird poached if convicted also a possible 6 months in prison per bird. Which is more expensive now? I grew up around birds, my father worked at an Audubon Society museum near Boston so as a youngster I would watch staff care for all types of rescued animals mostly birds. When I read this I was amazed that people in this line of work could be so selfish.

[lar42]

It is simply amazing what people will do for money instead of a little self-sacrificing. What goes around comes around! Treat others as you would like to be treated. The sayings go on but they all end up with the same result when you don't treat them with respect. :wink:

[Chappy]

Yah you see things happen like this from time to time but, it's still aggravating when it does!

[2Weight]

I have seen this posted on other sites and there are actually some people who see nothing wrong with it. Personally I hope Mike Zak takes the pipe on this one. He has been doing it for many years. 2WT

[neweyesofold]

ok so these osprey and other birds have been here long before we have, and there going to be here longer than us too. all of this was there's before it was ours so what right do we have to shoot them?

[kamloop]

It's circulating in Mass. that the state is going to pull his commercial hatchery licence and shut him down.
*LATEST ARTICLE*

SPRINGFIELD -- A Sunderland man accused in the killing of hundreds of migratory birds at his private fish hatchery off Route 116 pleaded guilty Monday in U.S. District Court to two counts of violating the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and one count of conspiracy to violate the act.

Immediately after the plea on the three lesser charges, a jury-waived trial began to determine whether Michael Zak Jr. is also guilty of killing a bald eagle in violation of federal law.

Zak, 58, of 467 Amherst Road, Sunderland, had originally been charged with three counts of violating the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, one count of conspiracy to violate the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and one count of violating the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act. On Monday he admitted to killing two birds and entered an Alford plea to the conspiracy charge.

In making an Alford plea, Zak did not admit to being part of a conspiracy, but did admit that the government had sufficient evidence to prove that he is guilty of conspiracy.

The man that Zak conspired with, his employee and son-in-law, Timothy Lloyd, 29, of 115 Park St., Easthampton, pleaded guilty on Friday to two counts of violating the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and one count of conspiracy to violate the same act. Lloyd is scheduled to be sentenced on June 27.

Sentencing for the two men is likely to take place after Zak is tried for the killing of a bald eagle.

Federal Justice Michael Ponsor noted, as he talked to Zak on the stand, that, even though he pleaded guilty to killing only two birds, during sentencing the judge can take into account all 270 of the ospreys, hawks and great blue herons that were slaughtered.

According to Ponsor, the accused men could be imprisoned for six months and fined $15,000 for each of the violations of the bird treaty act. In addition, Zak could receive a year in prison and another $5,000 in fines for the death of the bald eagle, if he is found guilty on that charge.

During her recitation of the facts Monday, prosecutor Kim West told the court that federal agents had found hundreds of carcasses that had been shot and tossed into the woods on Zak's land and that they had taken videotapes of Zak actually shooting one of the birds.

West said that, during interviews with many of Zak's former employees, government agents were told that Zak not only regularly shot birds that threatened his fish, but also bragged about how many of them he shot.

One worker at the hatchery said that he saw Zak shoot many birds and that the man said that he had shot 100 birds in a single year, according to the prosecutor.

Some of the workers also said that Zak had ordered them to shoot birds while they worked for him, the prosecutor said.

Although it is possible for people who run fish hatcheries to obtain permits for culling predatory birds that attack their livestock, federal investigations show that Zak never sought such a permit.

''Although defensive netting over the raceways would have protected the fish, he chose not to use that method and instead shot the birds one by one,'' West said.

According to the prosecutor, Zak initially refused to talk to them about the bird killings, but when he did finally comment he said that he, and his father before him, had been shooting predatory birds since the Mohawk Trout Hatchery opened in 1953.

During trial testimony in the matter of the bald eagle Monday, Thomas W. French, acting commissioner of fish and wildlife for Massachusetts, who is an expert on predatory birds, identified the raptor carcass that was displayed to the court as that of a juvenile female bald eagle.

Because the bird was banded on both legs with identifying numbers, it was possible to determine that she had been fledged in Connecticut.

According to French, bald eagle populations in Connecticut are largely descended from birds hatched in Massachusetts because the Bay State undertook to reintroduce the birds here in the late 1980s.

French said that the last native bald eagle in Massachusetts died in the town of Sandwich in Barnstable County in 1905.

The bird specialist also said that the longest continuously inhabited bald eagle nest in the state can be found in Barton Cove in Franklin County.

French also said that there are currently only 24 nesting pairs of bald eagles in Massachusetts, most of which live in the Quabbin or along the Connecticut River.

Bald eagles, according to French, are very easy to recognize partially because they are by far the largest birds of prey in Massachusetts with an average weight of 9.5 pounds and an average wingspan of 6.5 feet. Adults are also easily identified by their distinctive plumage, although juveniles are mostly brown with flecks of white.

During his testimony, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service special agent Thomas F. Ricardi told the court that he had begun investigating Zak and the Sunderland hatchery in September 2005 and had found dozens of heron corpses the first time he went onto the hatchery property. He also said that he had heard gunshots on that first visit.

Over several months of the investigation, Ricardi said that he and his team collected scores of dead birds and, on two occasions, actually videotaped people shooting birds.

''On October 4, 2005, (agent Andrey) Guidera and I observed Zak attempt to kill a great blue heron. Zak shouldered the rifle at an upward angle, aimed for several moments ... and then fired a single shot,'' he wrote in his complaint.

In the videotape, which was shown to the court, you can see Zak, driving along in a golf cart, suddenly stop, take aim and fire a single shot. The muzzle blast is clearly visible on the tape.

Another agent reported seeing Lloyd, at a later date, use a bipod mounted rifle to shoot an osprey that was sitting in a tree at the hatchery.

According to the court filings, a necropsy was performed on a random sample of the bird carcasses recovered from the hatchery grounds and the examiner found that all of the birds studied had been killed by gunfire.

''Small caliber bullets, such as .223, .222, .22-50 or .22 Magnum were recovered from the carcasses,'' Ricardi wrote.

The bald eagle, according to testimony, was killed by a bullet that entered through its shoulder and exited through its abdomen