Man pleads guilty for shooting and running over bald eagle

Published July 12, 2017 9:00pm ET



A Virginia man pleaded guilty on Tuesday to first shooting and then running over a bald eagle with his all-terrain vehicle.

Allen Thacker, 62, shot and ran over the bird “because he was upset it had been hunting and taking fish from a pond located on his property,” according to the Department of Justice. A press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia said that Thacker first fired a warning shot at the bird, and when that didn’t successfully scare it away, he shot the bird with a Remington .22 caliber rifle and then ran it over.

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