Subject: Three Dead Ravens dangling from a tree
Date: May 16 21:42:21 1999
From: Bill Smith - pwsmith at techline.com


Tweeters,

Arlen Fletcher's question is a good one, and I'd like to
try to provide the whole audience with some useful tools to
help answer it.

Killing almost any indegenous North American bird
(without a permit) is, at a minimum, a violation of the
federal law usually called the Migratory Bird Treaty Act
"MBTA": (16 USC 703 et seq.). The text of the law can be
read on the web beginning at:
http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/16/ch7.html#PC7

For what a "migratory bird" is (and other useful info),
go on the web to
http://www.fws.gov/r9mbmo/intrnltr/mbta/mbtintro.html .
That leads to a complete list of protected birds (which
essentially is the AOU Checklist minus introduced species).

Enforcement of the MBTA is the responsibility of the US
Fish & Wildlife Service Div. of Law Enforcement. For the
western states (Region 1), it is headquartered in Portland,
Oregon (tel. 503-231-6125). They have a not-too-helpful web
page at http://www.r1.fws.gov/law/lawx.html .

The main tools all may be outlined above. The trick is
to get them to work in a particular situation. From my
experiences in other parts of the country (I've had none
in these parts), it's not easy.
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P W (Bill) Smith
Grays Harbor, Washington USA
pwsmith at techline.com