Is this legal?

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Marshall

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I don't know if this if the proper place to post this question but I know it's where the legal minds reside.

A friend of mine found an owl with a broken wing sitting on the ground where he lives. He took the owl to vet and two days later put the owl down. Could my friend ask for the owl and have it mounted or is it against a federal or state law to mount an owl? He resides in Michigan.

Thanks!
 
IANAL and all, but I don't see why not. The thing is dead, what else are they going to do with it? Bury it? Cremate it? Toss it in the landfill?

The US Fish and Wildlife Service maintains a pretty extensive oneline database of the endangered species list (that link will only show you anything with 'owl' in its name) so you can cross reference against that, if you want. But insofar as I know, you can do whatever you want with an endangered carcass as long as you don't get nailed for the actual act of making it dead in the first place.
 
IANAL and all, but I don't see why not. The thing is dead, what else are they going to do with it? Bury it? Cremate it? Toss it in the landfill?
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Because then you get a bunch of knot-heads capturing the things, breaking their wings and then wanting to get them mounted. I'm NOT saying that's what happened here, only that that's why there may be a law against it.
 
Possession of owl parts is illegal, by Federal law. See the Migratory Bird Treaty Act:

http://www.gwf.org/birdlaw.htm

List of protected species:

http://www.fws.gov/migratorybirds/intrnltr/mbta/compare.pdf

Also, if I recall correctly, Fred Trost got in a bit of legal trouble for this some years ago. Fred Trost hosted a hunting/fishing television program in Michigan, and somehow was in possession of a stuffed owl (in his museum, I think.)
 
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