Two men on trial in federal court for poisoning dozens of birds

When state Game Commission Officer Byron Gibbs found 25 dead birds near wetlands on a Lawrence County farm in the summer of 2020, he immediately suspected they had been poisoned.

Along a trail of yellow corn about 100 yards long, there were 17 Canadian geese — including at least two goslings — seven red-winged blackbirds and a female mallard duck.

“It went in a line around the edge of the field closest to the water,” Gibbs testified on Monday. “As you could see, the carnage spread out across the field — the corn was, generally, in the middle of it.”

The two men accused of poisoning those birds began their bench trial in U.S. District Court on Monday before Judge W. Scott Hardy. Having a bench trial in federal court is unusual — particularly in a case involving misdemeanor charges.

Robert Yost, 51, of New Galilee, and Jacob Reese, 26, of Enon Valley, are charged with conspiracy; unlawful use of a registered, restricted pesticide and unlawful killing of migratory birds.

Their defense attorneys told the judge during opening statements that their clients were not guilty.

But the government said that the men spread the poisoned corn along a wetlands area on the Edwards’ family farm — which Yost had leased for at least 16 years — to try to contain the damage the geese had been doing to his soybean crop.

Theresa Edwards, who owns the 56-acre farm with her husband, Ben Edwards, and his aunt, testified on Monday morning that Yost and his employees, including Reese, had been trying to stop the birds from damaging the crops.

“The geese had always been a problem,” she said. “We knew Rob didn’t like the geese. The geese loved the soybeans and ate half the crops.”

In early June, Edwards said, she heard and then saw another employee of Yost’s farm firing a gun in the area of the wetlands one Saturday morning. As soon as the shot went off, the geese flew away, she said. That happened at least three times.

Edwards said she called the Game Commission at the time because she was worried about shots being fired a couple hundred yards away from the family’s home. At the time, her children were 9 and 12 years old and often wandered around the property, she said.

Then, a few days after the incidents with the gunshots, she continued, her husband discovered eight leg-hold traps set up along the edge of the wetlands.

The traps were not marked, she said, and also posed a hazard to her children. They were disguised among the tall grasses.

After the Edwards family complained, they said that the traps were removed.

But then, Edwards testified, on June 22, she saw Reese near the wetlands again. That time he was shirtless and shoveling something that looked like grain, out of a bag on the back of a UTV all along the edge of the field, she said.

Reese was there for about 45 minutes, and she took photographs using her camera and a telescopic lens from her home, Edwards said.

The next morning, as Ben Edwards was leaving their property, he saw the birds lying in the field.

“I couldn’t tell if they were lying down, sleeping or dead,” he testified. “It didn’t look right to me.”

He called his wife and son to go check on them.

That’s when they found the dead birds and again called the Game Commission.

When Gibbs arrived, his immediate concerns revolved around safety — both for the family and for the wildlife in the area.

Gibbs told Edwards and her son to return to their home, she said, remove their clothes, burn their boots and shower.

“I knew it had to be something bad for me to be told to get rid of everything,” she said.

Gibbs then set about collecting the dead birds and samples of the corn to be tested at the lab. He worried that animals scavenging off the carcasses could become sickened, as well.

“It wouldn’t take long before those animals would be eaten,” Gibbs said. “My concern was for secondary poisoning, of eagles, owls, hawks, raccoons, foxes, bobcats and coyotes.”

Tests later confirmed that the corn had been coated in carbofuran, which was declared unsafe by the Environmental Protection Agency in 2009.

The same afternoon the birds were discovered, Gibbs obtained a search warrant for Yost’s farm a few miles down the road.

During trial on Monday, the government played body cam footage showing Gibbs talking to both Yost and Reese that day.

In the video, Yost admitted that he sent Reese to the Edwards’ farm to put “seed corn” down a day earlier to try to get the birds to eat that instead of the soybean crop.

“We put seed corn to give them something to eat because they’ve annihilated…” Yost said, his voice trailing off. “I told him to put this out there. I’m his boss. The damage is extensive.”

Yost denied that the corn was poisoned.

“Maybe they gorged themselves,” he said in the video.

“Wild birds are not going to eat themselves to death,” Gibbs replied. “It’s not believable an animal eats a few pieces of corn and dies.”

In another video clip, Reese admitted that he had put the corn out the day before and said he burned the bag the corn had been in once it was empty.

The men then showed Gibbs a stack of sealed bags of seed corn in one of the farm buildings. Gibbs testified that the seed corn they showed him was pinkish red in color — coated in a fungicide, while the corn that was poisoned was whole, yellow corn kernels.

Gibbs said he did not find any of that, or any poison, on the farm.

On cross-examination, defense attorneys questioned Theresa Edwards about the metadata on the photos she provided. Edwards testified that she took the pictures of Reese in the field on June 22 — the day before the birds were found dead.

However, the defense said that the metadata for the digital photos said they were taken on June 17.

Edwards said she had broken her camera during a trip that summer, had taken it for service, and that she believed the date information saved in it was incorrect.

The defense noted, though, that metadata for the photos Edwards took the day the gun was fired at the geese matched up with her call to the Game Commission.

The trial will continue Tuesday.