BILLINGS — A southern Montana man has been sentenced to probation for killing a bald eagle.
The Billings Gazette reports that 44-year-olf Alexander Birdinground Jr., of Crow Agency, was sentenced Thursday to spend five years on probation and to pay $5,000 in restitution for killing the eagle.
Birdinground pleaded guilty in April to conspiracy to transport illegally killed eagles, unlawfully taking eagles, unlawfully hunting migratory birds and unlawfully transporting an illegally taken eagle.
He said he killed the eagle for “cultural use” and that he wanted to use the juvenile bird’s feathers to make a fan for his daughter and to make arrows.