August 24, 2011
By Bill Rankin, Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A Newnan man on Wednesday was fined $2,000 and sentenced to two years
probation and ordered to not hunt during that time for killing an
endangered Florida panther while hunting.
David Adams, 60, was on a deer hunting trip in Troup County in
November 2008 when he shot and killed a cougar, known as a Florida
panther, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said. Adams knew at the time
he was shooting at a cougar, for which there was no open hunting season
in Georgia. The Florida panther (puma concolor coryi) has been listed as
an endangered species since March 11, 1967.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Florida Fish and Wildlife
Commission have long worked to bring the Florida panther back from the
edge of extinction. The population has been growing since its low point
of less than 30 panthers in the wild in the late 1980s, to more than 100
to 160 adults today.
“Today’s sentencing affirms our commitment to investigate violations
of the federal wildlife laws intended to protect our Nation’s most
imperiled species,” said Luis J. Santiago, acting special agent in
charge of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's southeast region law
enforcement office.
Adams was sentenced by a federal judge in Atlanta who also ordered
Adams to not obtain a hunting license anywhere in the United States
while he is on probation.
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