Texas deer smuggler to pay $1.5 million in fines, restitution

June 14, 2011 Texas deer smuggler to pay $1.5 million in fines, restitution

After a lengthy four-year investigation, a 77-year-old Cherokee County, TX deer breeder has pleaded guilty to illegally transporting at least 37 whitetail deer into Texas from game farms in Illinois, Indiana and Ohio in violation of state and federal statutes. Billy Powell has agreed to pay a $1 million fine, to be deposited into the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Lacy Act Reward Fund, as well as $500,000 in restitution to Texas Parks and Wildlife, on his sentencing date. US Attorney's Office release.

http://www.outdoorpressroom.com/outdoorpressroom/2011/06/texas-deer-smuggler-to-pay-15-million-in-fines-restitution.html



http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/newsmedia/releases/?req=20110615a



East Texas deer breeder pleads guilty to smuggling

June 14, 2011 11:17 AM

Scott Lawrence

TYLER, Texas – From U.S. Attorney's Office - After a lengthy four year investigation a 77-year-old Cherokee County, Texas licensed deer breeder has pleaded guilty to illegally transporting wildlife in the Eastern District of Texas and then lying about it to a U.S. Fish and Wildlife agent, announced U.S. Attorney John M. Bales today.

Billy Powell pleaded guilty on June 14, 2011, to the felony offense of smuggling at least 37 whitetail deer, over a 3 year time span, from Indiana, Illinois, and Ohio into Texas in violation of state and federal laws. Powell also admitted that he made a false statement and submitted a false document to a U.S. Fish and Wildlife special agent who was looking into the matter. Powell has agreed to pay a $1 million fine, to be deposited into the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Lacy Act Reward Fund, as well as $500,000.00 in restitution to Texas Parks and Wildlife, on his sentencing date. Powell’s agreement with the government calls for Powell to serve 3 years probation with six months of home confinement which will be monitored with an electric anklet. During the term of probation, Powell will be prohibited from participating in any manner in commercial deer breeding. Additionally, Powell must forfeit any illegally imported deer, any progeny of those deer, and any biological material derived from said deer, which would include any semen, antlers, mounts, and cloned deer. Powell has already forfeited over 1,300 straws of frozen semen valued at approximately $961,500.00 to U.S. Fish and Wildlife.

According to information presented in court, on at least four separate occasions, spanning from October 2006 through June 2008, Powell knowingly imported at least 37 live whitetail deer, many of whom came from captive deer farms in Ligonier, Indiana, into the state of Texas and to his “5-P Farms”, high fenced deer breeding facility in Cherokee County Texas. These deer included bucks known as “Fat Boy” aka “Barry”, “Silver Storm” aka “Hit Man”, “Y 009", “Eagle Storm” aka “BJ”, “Thunderstruck”, “High Five”, and “Primer” aka “Spikes”. At all times Powell knew that Texas law prohibited any person from possessing a deer acquired from an out-of-state source. In spite of this, Powell agreed to participate in the above-described transactions in which whitetail deer would be secretly transported from Illinois, Indiana, and/or Pennsylvania, to Texas in order to evade Texas laws and regulations.

Powell acknowledged that the fair market value of all of the illegally imported, whitetail deer exceeded approximately $800,000.00, that the value of the illegally accumulated white-tailed deer semen exceeded approximately $961,000.00, and that the value of the progeny exceeded approximately $290,000.00.

Powell further admitted that he lied to a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Special Agent during a voluntary statement at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Tyler, Texas. Powell told the agent that he had illegally imported approximately 35 white-tailed deer into the state of Texas when in fact he knew that he had illegally imported no less than 41 white-tailed deer, including 6 white-tail deer fawns. During the same statement, Powell also submitted lists identifying 35 white-tailed deer as the total number of white-tailed deer that he had illegally imported into the state of Texas when he knew that he had actually illegally imported no less than 41 white-tailed, including 6 white-tail deer fawns.

Findings of the investigation also prompted the Wildlife Division of Texas Parks and Wildlife Department to conduct an epidemiological investigation in consultation with veterinarians and wildlife disease experts from Texas Animal Health Commission, Texas Department of State Health Services, and Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine and accredited veterinarians actively involved in the deer breeding industry. This process was carried out in three separate phases. Ultimately all 334 deer contained in Powell’s deer breeding facility were euthanized to facilitate testing for chronic wasting disease (CWD) and bovine tuberculosis (TB). This process was necessary in order to provide an acceptable level of assurance that neither disease was prevalent in Powell’s deer breeding facility nor in any deer breeding facility that had received deer from Powell’s facility since October 2004.

Texas Parks and Wildlife Department has had an intensive CWD surveillance program since 2002, and this disease has yet to be detected in Texas. Likewise, bovine tuberculosis has not been detected in any Texas deer population. However, illegal entry of white-tailed deer from other states poses a serious risk of introducing these diseases and others into Texas. Introduction of these diseases into Texas could have a detrimental impact on the longtime cultural tradition of deer hunting, which generates an estimated $1.2 billion in retail sales and has a total economic output of more than $2 billion in Texas each year. Disease monitoring is also necessary to protect legal deer breeding activity from risk of disease exposure. Furthermore, bovine tuberculosis could have a significant impact on the Texas livestock industry. Prevention is the most effective tool to combat diseases because once established in wild populations, these diseases are extremely difficult, if not impossible to eradicate.

Since no live-animal test for CWD exists, TPWD consulted with trained experts to ensure the most humane euthanasia method and treatment of the animals was used. Texas Parks and Wildlife officials are presently awaiting the test results for the tissue samples submitted to the Texas Veterinarian Medical Diagnostic Laboratory located in College Station, TX

This case was investigated by the Special Operations Unit of the Texas Parks and Wildlife and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Jim Noble.

http://www.kfdm.com/articles/texas-43311-pleads-smuggling.html


GOOD BUST ! NICE JOB !

Texas, you don't want CWD. so you better use all weapons to keep it out. ...tss


UPDATED DATA ON 2ND CWD STRAIN

Wednesday, September 08, 2010

CWD PRION CONGRESS SEPTEMBER 8-11 2010

http://chronic-wasting-disease.blogspot.com/2010/09/cwd-prion-2010.html


Thursday, June 09, 2011

Detection of CWD prions in salivary, urinary, and intestinal tissues of deer: potential mechanisms of prion shedding and transmission

http://chronic-wasting-disease.blogspot.com/2011/06/detection-of-cwd-prions-in-salivary.html


Tuesday, September 02, 2008

Detection of infectious prions in urine (Soto et al Available online 13 August 2008.)

http://chronic-wasting-disease.blogspot.com/2008/09/detection-of-infectious-prions-in-urine.html


CWD, GAME FARMS, BAITING, AND POLITICS

http://chronic-wasting-disease.blogspot.com/2009/01/cwd-game-farms-baiting-and-politics.html


http://chronic-wasting-disease.blogspot.com/2008/08/cwd-feeding-and-baiting-piles.html


Thursday, February 17, 2011

Environmental Sources of Scrapie Prions

http://scrapie-usa.blogspot.com/2011/02/environmental-sources-of-scrapie-prions.html


Saturday, May 14, 2011

Modeling Routes of Chronic Wasting Disease Transmission: Environmental Prion Persistence Promotes Deer Population Decline and Extinction

http://chronic-wasting-disease.blogspot.com/2011/05/modeling-routes-of-chronic-wasting.html



you have just about every CWD TSE scientist, biologist, DNR in most states, saying science shows that baiting and feeding enhances the likelyhood of disease transmission and spread there from.


Saturday, May 16, 2009

Chronic Wasting Disease Herd Certification Program Document ID APHIS-2006-0118-0096

http://chronic-wasting-disease.blogspot.com/2009/05/chronic-wasting-disease-herd.html


2003D-0186 Guidance for Industry: Use of Material From Deer and Elk In Animal Feed

EMC 1 Terry S. Singeltary Sr. Vol #: 1

http://www.fda.gov/ohrms/dockets/dailys/03/Jun03/060903/060903.htm


2003D-0186 Guidance for Industry: Use of Material From Deer and Elk In Animal Feed

EMC 7 Terry S. Singeltary Sr. Vol #: 1

2003D-0186 Guidance for Industry: Use of Material From Deer and Elk In Animal Feed

EMC 7 Terry S. Singeltary Sr. Vol #: 1

http://www.fda.gov/ohrms/dockets/dailys/03/oct03/100203/100203.htm


CONTAINS NON-BINDING RECOMMENDATIONS

158 Guidance for Industry Use of Material from Deer and Elk in Animal Feed

Comments and suggestions regarding this guidance should be sent to the Division of Dockets Management (HFA-305), Food and Drug Administration, 5630 Fishers Lane, Room 1061, Rockville, MD 20852. Comments may also be submitted electronically on the Internet at http://www.fda.gov/dockets/ecomments. Once on this Internet site, select "[03D-0186][Use of Material from Deer and Elk in Animal Feed]" and follow the directions. All written comments should be identified with Docket No. 03D-0186.

For questions regarding this guidance, contact Burt Pritchett, Center for Veterinary Medicine (HFV- 222), Food and Drug Administration, 7500 Standish Place, Rockville, MD 20855, 301-827-0177. E-mail: bpritche@cvm.fda.gov

Additional copies of this guidance document may be requested from the Communications Staff (HFV-12), Center for Veterinary Medicine, Food and Drug Administration, 7500 Standish Place, Rockville, MD 20855, and may be viewed on the Internet at http://www.fda.gov/cvm.

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

Food and Drug Administration Center for Veterinary Medicine September 15, 2003

158 Guidance for Industry[1] Use of Material from Deer and Elk in Animal Feed

http://madcowfeed.blogspot.com/2008/07/docket-03d-0186-fda-issues-draft.html



Thursday, May 26, 2011

Travel History, Hunting, and Venison Consumption Related to Prion Disease Exposure, 2006-2007 FoodNet Population Survey

Journal of the American Dietetic Association Volume 111, Issue 6 , Pages 858-863, June 2011.

http://transmissiblespongiformencephalopathy.blogspot.com/2011/05/travel-history-hunting-and-venison.html



Sunday, October 04, 2009

CWD NEW MEXICO SPREADING SOUTH TO TEXAS 2009

http://chronic-wasting-disease.blogspot.com/2009/10/cwd-new-mexico-spreading-south-to-texas.html



TSS