'Sloppy' use of poison kills six bald eagles

A North Dakota rancher admits to being responsible for the poisoning of six bald eagles at his ranch on the Standing Rock Sioux Indian Reservation.

David Alan Meyer, 58, pleaded guilty to several wildlife violations involving the bald eagle deaths. He could be sentenced to a year in prison; as well as being ordered to pay restitution.

In 2016, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Environmental Protection Agency found that Meyer, who owns Meyer Buffalo Ranch, had supervised the misapplication of 39,000 pounds of Rozel prairie dog bait, a restricted-use pesticide, on more than 6,400 acres of his property.

The poison was supposed to be put into prairie dog holes but, according to more than a dozen workers, they got sloppy and an EPA emergency response team was called in to oversee cleanup of the ranch land. That’s when investigators discovered that six bald eagles died from the poison.