A $2,500 reward is being offered by federal wildlife investigators probing the shooting of a bald eagle near Watts Bar Lake.
The eagle, an adult, was shot recently in the Blue Springs Marina area near Kingston, according to a spokesperson from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Blue Springs Marina is on the east side of Watts Bar Lake near Ten Mile, about 2 miles north of the Meigs County line on state Route 304.
The agency is offering the reward to anyone with information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person or people responsible for shooting the eagle, spokesperson Lanier Clegg said. The Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act protect bald eagles, and violations of the act carry maximum criminal penalties of up to $100,000 and/or one year in federal prison.
Citing the service’s policies on open investigations, spokesperson Vanessa Kauffman declined to answer follow-up questions about the eagle’s condition, the time frame of the shooting and what was used to shoot it. The Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency deferred all questions to the federal agency. An agency photo of the eagle shows it perched on a tree limb inside an enclosure.