The roseate spoonbill is not native to New York. But on Wednesday, the tall, pink-winged creature appeared in Brooklyn federal court.
The Uruguayan bird, dead and stuffed, perched in front of prosecutors as its former owner, John Waldrop, was sentenced to three years of probation for illegally importing it along with hundreds of other items of taxidermy and thousands of eggs.
Mr. Waldrop, a Georgia orthopedic surgeon, was also ordered by Judge Rachel P. Kovner to pay a $900,000 fine for importing the mounted birds, many of which were rare.
For more than four years, Mr. Waldrop, with the help of his property’s caretaker, illegally imported hundreds of rare birds and eggs to adorn the interior of his lake house in Cataula, Ga. His makeshift museum featured roughly as many stuffed birds as there are people in Cataula, a town of around 1,400 outside Columbus.
Last August, he pleaded guilty to conspiracy and violating the Endangered Species Act.
“My love for birds is extraordinary,” Mr. Waldrop, 76, told Judge Kovner on Wednesday, as he held back tears. “Even this event won’t diminish my love for them and the wild.”
Along with the roseate spoonbill, prosecutors displayed mounts of a Eurasian eagle-owl and an eastern imperial eagle that had been seized from Mr. Waldrop’s residence. The birds faced Judge Kovner as she read out Mr. Waldrop’s sentence.
In arguing for a lighter sentence, Paul Fishman, a lawyer for Mr. Waldrop, described his client as a lifelong lover of avian life who had suffered from “quite a number of maladies.” He said Mr. Waldrop maintained a habitat for eagles on his property next to where he kept his taxidermy.
In a letter to the judge in support of Mr. Waldrop, the sheriff of Harris County, Ga., said he would take local elementary schoolers to the lake house to see “Dr. Waldrop’s zoo.”
But when federal officials searched the house in October 2020, they recovered more than 1,400 taxidermy mounts and nearly 2,600 eggs. The seizure, which ornithologists at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s forensic laboratory called the largest in the lab’s history, recovered specimens of hundreds of birds and eggs that are protected by international treaties, including the Migratory Bird Act and the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.
Prosecutors said that Mr. Waldrop started buying birds and eggs from overseas before 2016, using his own email account, payment methods and home address to order and receive them.
But after customs agents and federal wildlife officials kept seizing his items, he tried to evade them by having the specimens ordered in the name of Toney Jones, who worked as a caretaker on his farm. Mr. Jones, 55, would then send the specimens from his Alabama home to Mr. Waldrop. Mr. Jones was also sentenced Wednesday for his involvement in the scheme, receiving six months of probation.
According to court papers, Mr. Waldrop was in regular communication with overseas suppliers of the illegal specimens, wheeling and dealing with distributors in South America, Europe and Africa.
On one occasion in 2020, Mr. Waldrop asked a taxidermist in Malta whether a Beaudouin’s snake-eagle, a bird native to West Africa that is considered a vulnerable species, was available for stuffing. He added a yellow check mark across a picture to indicate the dead bird he wanted for his collection, according to prosecutors.
Prosecutors said there was no indication that Mr. Waldrop had killed rare birds. But by importing specimens, he fueled a demand for poaching and trafficking overseas, they said. Federal officials and conservationists have said that the wildlife trade threatens global biodiversity, while research has shown that online sales of bat specimens have contributed to their population decline.
Ryan Connors, a prosecutor with the Department of Justice, said in court Wednesday that Mr. Waldrop’s illegal imports interfered with the efforts of scientists to study and protect endangered species, and that he had violated not just federal wildlife laws but international agreements designed to protect vulnerable birds.
“The court has seen what a person with a bank account and a computer can do,” Mr. Connors said.
After the sentencing was completed, Mr. Waldrop’s treasures were covered in bubble wrap and garbage bags and packed away in cardboard boxes. They, like the rest of Mr. Waldrop’s collection, will be sent to zoos, research labs and museums that include the Smithsonian Institution.
As for Mr. Waldrop, he told the judge that, to replace what he acknowledged had become an “obsessive hobby,” he had started collecting custom wood carvings.
Santul Nerkar is a Times reporter covering federal courts in Brooklyn.
The post Georgia Man Sentenced for a Cache of Taxidermy Birds and Rare Eggs appeared first on New York Times.
