37 



Gift may prove^icklish for first Bady 



By PETER ROOSETi' law. An mdivid 



Newj-GaietlB Staff Wfll«r 



CHICAGO — An agent of the 

 'J.S. Fish & Wildlife Service said 

 tha:, technically, first lady Hilla- 

 ry Rodham Clinton could be 

 charged with violating two fed- 

 era! bird protection laws. 



Joseph E. B-jdzyn, the man 

 who supervised the eagle feath- 

 er possession investigation that 

 landed a mra! Monticello woman 

 :n hot water, said it's up to the 

 U.S. Attorney's office in Ij'rbana 

 whether to charge Clinton. 



Peg Bargon of rural Monticel- 

 lo faces possible charges that 

 she violated federal laws by giv- 

 ing an Indian-inspired dream 

 catcher made of feathers from 

 various birds that ihe found to 

 the first lady. Among the birds, 

 jhe has said, were an eagle 

 feather ana a hlue jjy feather. 



Bud;vn. a Chicafo-based se- 

 nior resident apcnt of the US. 

 Fish & Wildlife Service, said if 

 Hillary Clinton accepted the 

 dream catcher then she too 

 would b« in violation of both the 

 Migratory Bird Treaty Act. en- 

 acted by Congress in 1918, and 

 the Eagle Protection Act. passed 

 in 1940. 



"Theoretically, that's correct," 

 he said. "The Migratory Bird 

 freaty act is a strict liability 



ual does not 

 have to have 

 knowledge that 

 they violated 

 the law to have 

 committed a vi- 

 olation. 



Assistant 

 U.S. Attorney 

 Larry Beau- 

 mont said this 

 week that until 

 formal charges ^^•-•^^- 

 are filed, he can neither confirm 

 nor deny that an eagle feathers 

 case IS pending. 



J. Steven Beckett of Urbana. 

 Bargon's attorney, said she 

 claims she found the eagle feath- 

 er at a 200 in Columbia, S C not 

 in Peoria as was recently report- 

 ed. 



Budzyn said his agency is pri- 

 marily interested in prosecuting 

 cases where feathers are lold 

 for commercial gam. He 

 stressed that eagle feathers shed 

 in zoos are carefully monitored 

 and not available to passers-by. 

 "The zoos that do have eagles 

 on display hold a permit to dis- 

 play that eagle." he said. "One of 

 the conditions of the permit is 

 that they send the dropped 

 feathers to the National Eagle 

 Repository. All the birds and 

 parts there are used to fill Na- 



tive American requests for eagle 

 parts." 



Budzyn said the Migratory 

 Bird Treaty Act's original inten- 

 tion was to recognize birds as 

 national resources and to protect 

 them It was first signed by the 

 United Stales, Mexico ar.d Great 

 Britain on behalf of Canada. Ja- 

 pan signed the treaty in 1973 and 

 the Soviet Union came aboard in 

 1976. 



All migratory birds are cov- 

 ered by the act, Budzyn said. 



"It covers basically all your 

 birds except upland game birds 

 — pheasant, grouse, partridge 

 and wild turkey," he said. "The 

 other three exceptions are pi- 

 geons, sparrows and sLarhngs." 



TtiZ Eagle Protection Act was 

 intended to protect the nation's 

 symbol, the bald eagle, but also 

 covers the golden eagle, Budzyn 

 said. 



Mere possession of eagle 

 feathers or migratory bird feath- 

 ers can be punishable by up to 

 six months in jail and a fine of as 

 much as $56,000. Possession with 

 intent to sell the feathers can 

 bring up to a year in federal 

 prison and a fine of up to 

 $100,000, he said 



Budzyn said ignorance of the 

 law is not an excuse, nor is 

 claiming that the feathers were 

 found. 



