Court documents reveal that a man participated in a long-running wildlife trafficking operation in the western United States that is accused by police of killing thousands of birds, including at least 118 eagles, in order to sell their feathers and body parts on the illegal market.
On September 18, Travis John Branson will be punished in federal court for his involvement in the trafficking network that ran on the Flathead Indian Reservation in Montana and other locations.
According to the prosecution, the Cusick, Washington man sold illegally-obtained parts of bald and golden eagles for between $180,000 and $360,000 between 2009 and 2021.
In a court document on Tuesday, prosecutors from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Montana stated that “it was not uncommon for Branson to take upwards of nine eagles at a time. Not only did Branson kill eagles, but he hacked them into pieces to sell for future profits.”
Native Americans are fiercely protective of their eagles and use their wings, tails, feathers, and other parts in ceremonies.
Judge Dana Christensen was asked by the prosecution to sentence Branson to “significant imprisonment” and $777,250 in reparation. This comprises $1,750 for each of the 107 hawks that investigators claim he and his accomplices killed, as well as $5,000 for each slain eagle.
The prosecution inflated the number of birds killed, according to Branson’s lawyer, who refuted their assertions. The prosecution’s claim that up to 3,600 birds perished came from Simon Paul, a co-defendant who is still at large. In court documents, Branson’s legal representative claimed that the reported death toll stoked public outrage over the case.
Federal Defender Andrew Nelson noted in a Tuesday filing that Paul’s estimate of birds decreased from 3,600 to 1,000, citing a statement he gave to police during a traffic stop on March 13, 2021.
Nelson added that since the hawks’ killings were excluded from the grand jury’s indictment from the previous year, reparation for them was not necessary. He requested for a probationary period and stated that Branson had no past criminal history.
Paul and Branson were raised in the Flathead Reservation. Nelson claims that Paul has been hiding in Canada since their indictment in order to avoid justice.
Prosecutors noted that investigators recorded the bare minimum of eagles and hawks that were killed as a result of Branson’s text messages.
When his messages from the previous two years were not found, prosecutors claimed that the “full scope of Branson’s killings is not captured.”
No other bird species have been reported as killed by government agents.
For many Native Americans, bald and golden eagles are sacred. It is illegal for anybody to take an eagle’s nest or eggs, or to kill, injure, or disturb one without a permission in the United States.
A recent government investigation found that one of the main causes of golden eagle mortality is illegal gunshots.
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Feathers and other bird parts are lawfully available to members of federally recognized tribes from non-governmental repositories in Oklahoma and Phoenix, as well as the National Eagle Repository in Colorado. The national repository has a backlog of requests spanning several years.
In March, Branson entered a guilty plea to charges of conspiracy, wildlife trafficking, and two counts of trafficking bald and golden eagles that are protected by federal law. The most serious accusation, conspiracy, carried a possible sentence of five years in jail and a fine of $250,000. Prosecutors stated they will attempt to get more trafficking charges dropped as part of a plea agreement.
According to federal norms, Branson should serve between three and four years in jail.
