By Brad Brooks
(Reuters) - A man who was indicted in Montana for hunting and killing bald eagles, the national symbol of the U.S. that nearly went extinct, has agreed to plead guilty in a plea deal and now faces 12 years in prison.
Travis John Branson, 48, has agreed to plead guilty to conspiracy to kill bald and golden eagles and unlawfully traffic the birds, according to a plea agreement filed in the U.S. District Court in Missoula, Montana, on Tuesday.
A March 20 change of plea hearing has been scheduled. Branson faces up to 12 years in prison for the counts he has agreed to plead guilty to.
The plea agreement did not say whether Branson will assist prosecutors in their case against Simon Paul, 42, who was indicted by a grand jury in December along with Branson, or any other persons involved in the trafficking scheme.
Paul failed to show up for an initial court appearance in January and a warrant has been issued for his arrest. He remains at large.
Federal prosecutors say Branson and Simon killed over 3,600 birds, among them an unspecified number of protected bald and golden eagles, from January 2015 to March 2021, often on or near the Flathead Indian Reservation in western Montana.
Prosecutors allege Paul and Branson would hunt the birds on the reservation and elsewhere.
"The defendants then illegally sold the eagles on the black market for significant sums of cash across the United States and elsewhere," the indictment read, without specifying for how much money.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says the bald eagle nearly went extinct in the mid-1900s because of habitat destruction and the contamination of fish, its primary food source, by the insecticide DDT, which made the eagles' eggs thin and easily breakable.
The U.S. Congress made killing bald eagles illegal in 1940. The birds were placed on the endangered species list in 1967. They were removed from all endangered and threatened species lists in 2007.