Santos Guerrero, 42, of Porter, earlier this year admitted he shot the bird at his home Oct. 11, 2024. In March, he was charged with one count of violating the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act.<\/p>\n
U.S. Magistrate Judge Peter Bray has now ordered Guerrero to serve two weeks in federal prison and pay a $5,000 fine. Guerrero faced punishment of up to a year in federal prison and a $100,000 fine.<\/p>\n
“I fully recognize that my decisions resulted in the death of a bald eagle, a protected national symbol, and I understand the seriousness of my actions,” Guerrero wrote in a letter to the court before his sentencing.<\/p>\n
On the day of the shooting, Texas Parks and Wildlife wardens were called to the area by a witness said they saw it happen. Initially, Guerrero told authorities that he shot a hawk that was bothering his chickens.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“My intention was to scare it\u00a0away and to protect the animals that I care for, not to kill it,” he wrote. “I have always loved and cared for\u00a0animals, and throughout my life I have taken pride in looking after them.”<\/p>\n
After shooting the bird, Santos moved it to his garage and initially lied about the incident to authorities. He wrote in the letter to court that he believed he could care for the eagle himself and release it once it recovered<\/p>\n
The eagle was alive when the wardens arrived, but it was severely injured and was taken to a local animal hospital, where it was\u00a0euthanized. It had damage to its wing from the bullet and also injuries from the fall from the tree.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Bald eagles are protected under the 1940 Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act, though they are no longer considered endangered.<\/p>\n
The law prohibits killing, possessing, selling, transporting, exporting or importing a bald or golden eagle, alive or dead, including any part, nest or egg, unless permitted.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Santos Guerrero, 42, of Porter, earlier this year admitted he shot the bird at his home Oct. 11,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":413343,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[56,58,57],"class_list":["post-413342","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-houston","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413342","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=413342"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413342\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/413343"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=413342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=413342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=413342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}