A Relic of the Past or the Future of Environmental Criminal Law? An Argument for a Broad Interpretation of Liability under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act

摘要

The Migratory Bird Treaty Act is one of our nation's oldest environmental statutes. It was passed decades before the major environmental law renaissance of the 1970s, and is lesser known than the more contemporary wildlife protection statutes that dominate headlines and political debate, such as the Endangered Species Act. The Migratory Bird Treaty Act is a broadly written criminal statute that is unique in the way it provides for the blanket protection of over one thousand native bird species in North America, regardless of whether they are listed as endangered. The Migratory Bird Treaty Act is thus a critically important tool for bird conservation, as it provides legal protection for millions of individual migratory birds that forage, nest, and migrate in an increasingly developed landscape. Nevertheless, the Migratory Bird Treaty Act faces many critics, because its scope potentially criminalizes any human activity that causes the death of a migratory bird, and because it relies on the Fish and Wildlife Service's prosecutorial discretion to temper its broad reach.