Chris, there's a process with evidence. We knew it was shot but if the person responsible is caught and arrested, when the case goes to trial the forensic evidence is going to be the key element in the entire case. There is no forensic lab in Connecticut that can do a forensic examination on wildlife and provide expert witnesses to testify in court. If this was a sexual assault, a shooting involving a human, etc., then yes, the Connecticut State Police Forensic Lab would have handled it. But they don't do wildlife cases. They don't have the experts in animal and bird biology. The USF&W Service has the best wildlife forensic lab in the country. Because of the federal nexus of the violation we were able to use their services to conduct a full forensic exam of the bird and their experts will come here to testify in court if needed.

Just so you know HSUS is one of the largest and most powerful anti-hunting orgs in the country. They fund rewards to make hunting look bad. Illegal hunters should look bad and go to jail, but HSUS does everything they can to link legal hunting with illegal actions like killing eagles.

X3 - HSUS is against all hunting. And fishing next.

"HSUS knows an attempt to completely ban hunting would never work, politically. Instead, their idea is to label and isolate specific practices within hunting to create emotional media attention to mislead voters, while ignoring scientific facts and conservation needs. Every time a law gets passed to eliminate specific hunting practices, HSUS gets closer and closer to their ultimate goal – the elimination of all hunting."

thanks for the Clarification on that Skip'!!!! Merry Christmas everybody!