Deliberate Pesticide Poisoning Leads to Prosecution under Nation’s
Oldest Conservation Law

Sharp-shinned Hawk. Photo: USFWS

A Kentucky man, Donnie Halcomb, was sentenced by a U.S. District Court on August 20 to six months of home confinement, five years probation, and fined $50,000 in connection with a poisoning incident that violated the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, a law that prohibits the killing of migratory birds. Halcomb laced deer carcasses with the deadly poison carbofuran, sold under the brand name Furadan, to poison coyotes. The result was the poisoning of dozens of non-target animals, including dogs, and birds such as owls, hawks, and vultures.

Farmers and hunters were also put at risk. Dr. Chris West, a toxicologist for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), testified that carbofuran was used in high enough concentrations to cause nausea, headaches, vomiting, and possibly death in humans had they come into contact with the substance, even by touch.

The Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 is the nation’s oldest surviving wildlife statute. It was put in place to halt the unregulated hunting of migratory birds, particularly for the feather trade, which was decimating populations of such species as the Trumpeter Swan and Black Duck. It still fulfills this valuable function today. In 2007, the Law Enforcement Division of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) investigated 1,905 MBTA violations, though few resulted in fines of the magnitude of the Halcomb case. The Act is a “strict liability statute”, which means that even if it was not Halcomb’s desire to kill birds, he is liable. In a 1999 precedent-setting case brought against a utility company whose power lines killed eagles and hawks, the MBTA was enforced and upheld because it was deemed foreseeable that bird deaths would occur by the company’s actions, even if there was no intent to kill birds.

The Halcomb case was investigated by EPA, FWS, and the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources. FWS is asking for the public’s help to report wildlife poisoning incidents, which frequently go undiscovered, but can have serious population level effects on non-target birds. In Britain, for example, the Red Kite was nearly wiped out due to the lacing of carcasses to kill foxes. The agency has created a factsheet, available at http://www.fws.gov/frankfort/Wildlife%20Poisoning.pdf that discusses the problem.

American Bird Conservancy maintains a database on wildlife poisoning incidents (http://www.abcbirds.org/abcprograms/policy/pesticides/aims/aims/index.cfm), which contains data on more than 100 pesticides. Carbofuran is responsible for almost 20% of the 2,500+ incidents in the database. Of the 190 poisoning cases FWS has investigated, 31% involved carbofuran. The EPA has concluded that even legal uses of carbofuran will inevitably kill birds, and following efforts by American Bird Conservancy and other organizations, the agency has taken action to remove it from the market as soon as possible.