CLEVELAND — A 79-year-old man from Tuscarawas County pleaded guilty to shooting and killing a bald eagle with a rifle on his property in October 2021, according to a release from the Department of Justice.
The 79-year-old man from Dover shot and killed a bald eagle on Oct. 7, 2021, on his farmland in Tuscarawas County.
The Department of Justice said he routinely conducted inspections of the land for the presence of pests and rodents and during one of these inspections, he shot and killed a bald eagle with a rifle.
After shooting the eagle, he threw it in the tree line bordering one of his fields.
Under the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act of 1940, it's prohibited to shoot bald or golden eagles.
As part of his plea deal, he agreed to pay $10,000 in restitution to the United States Fish and Wildlife Service and pay an additional $10,000 fine. He also agreed to five-years probation from hunting and the destruction of the rifle and ammunition seized during the investigation.
The man is scheduled to be sentenced on Oct. 11, 2022.
A nesting survey in 2021 revealed there are an estimated 806 bald eagle nests in Ohio. This is an estimated increase of 14% from the 707 bald eagle nests documented through the 2020 citizen science survey.
The Ohio Department of Natural Resources says bald eagle nesting success was at an estimated rate of 82% in the spring of 2021, and the number of young per nest was 1.6, well above the number of 1 per nest needed to sustain the population.
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