A federal judge on Thursday sentenced an Amarillo man to one year of probation after prosecutors said he let hunters exceed their daily bag limit of sandhill cranes.
Mark Dean Meissenburg, 44, also will pay a $900 fine and $2,590 in restitution after he pleaded guilty to one count of having custody of migratory birds without proper tagging.
On a three-day undercover investigation beginning Jan. 22, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agents met Meissenburg in a motel parking lot in Littlefield for a morning hunt through corn fields in Castro County, the release said. Prosecutors said Meissenburg told the agents to fill his daily bag limit after they filled their own of three sandhill cranes each.
On the last day of the hunt, Meissenburg instructed the agents to leave the sandhill cranes in their motel rooms or vehicles so they wouldn’t have more than the legal limit of six sandhill cranes each.