Wildlife trafficking ring killed at least 118 eagles, authorities say

A man helped kill at least 118 eagles to sell their feathers and body parts on the black market as part of a long-running wildlife trafficking ring in the western U.S. that authorities allege killed thousands of birds, court filings show.

Travis John Branson is scheduled to be sentenced in federal court on Sept. 18 for his role in the trafficking ring that operated on the Flathead Indian Reservation in Montana and elsewhere.

Prosecutors say the Cusick, Washington man made between $180,000 and $360,000 from 2009 to 2021 selling bald and golden eagle parts illegally.

“It was not uncommon for Branson to take upwards of nine eagles at a time,” prosecutors with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Montana wrote in a Tuesday court filing. “Not only did Branson kill eagles, but he hacked them into pieces to sell for future profits.”

Eagle wings, tails, feathers and other parts are highly sought after by Native Americans who use them in ceremonies.

Prosecutors asked Judge Dana Christensen to sentence Branson to “significant imprisonment” and restitution totaling $777,250. That includes $5,000 for every dead eagle and $1,750 for each of 107 hawks that investigators said he and his co-conspirators killed.

Investigators documented the minimum number of eagles and hawks killed through Branson’s text messages, prosecutors said. Two years of his messages were not recovered, leading prosecutors to say the “full scope of Branson’s killings is not captured.”

Government officials have not revealed any other species of birds killed.

Bald and golden eagles are sacred to many Native Americans. U.S. law prohibits anyone without a permit from killing, wounding or disturbing eagles, or taking their nests or eggs.

Illegal shootings are a leading cause of golden eagle deaths, according to a recent government study.

Members of federally recognized tribes can get feathers and other bird parts legally through from the National Eagle Repository in Colorado and non-government repositories in Oklahoma and Phoenix. There’s a yearslong backlog of requests at the national repository.



(Photo: Spenser Heaps/The Deseret News via AP, file)