Law enforcement amassed 50 agents for Sowinski onslaught
Part 4: In “very dangerous mission,” more agents entered Sowinski property on one day than the number of dead animals found in three years
Its efforts had sputtered on and off for several years, and had only intensified in the early months of the fateful year, but by May 12, 2010, law enforcement was finally ready to strike, amassing approximately 50 federal and state agents to assist in a raid of property owned by Paul and Alvin Sowinski of Sugar Camp.
The execution of federal search warrants that day stemmed from multiple searches without warrants of the Sowinski family’s 8,000-acre property, which includes a 4,000-acre farming operation. The agents, acting on overheard gossip and other tips from informants, had looked since 2007 for poisoned bait sites and poisoned wildlife, particularly for protected eagles and wolves.
By May 2010, after finding one poisoned bald eagle in 2007, they had found no other poisoned eagles—two other dead eagles were found not to be poisoned—and no poisoned wolves. But, according to the U.S. attorney’s office of the western district of Wisconsin, law enforcement had collected 41 other dead animals near nine bait sites, many of which, a government lab “concluded,” had been poisoned; all totaled, the government found somewhat fewer animals than it had agents participating in the May 12 invasion of the property, and fewer yet that had been poisoned.
During the warrants’ execution, agents discovered 38 more dead animals, the U.S. attorney’s office announced, including three bald eagles. Alvin Sowinski stipulated that at least one of those eagles was killed by the banned insecticide Carbofuran, though none of the animals seized during the raid that day was ever tested.
Alvin Sowinski, 78, made the stipulation in a plea agreement; as part of the same deal, his son Paul, 46, stipulated that he knowingly possessed a bald eagle discovered by law enforcement on May 12, 2010. Each of the men pleaded guilty to a single count of misdemeanor possession of a bald eagle.
Blitzkrieg …