Wouldn't punishments of only jail time and big fines increase animosity from the shooter towards the birds and those protecting them? What about getting the guy to work alongside biologists and others caring for the birds for a while? Teach him that they are more than just targets or animals to be conquered.
We all know the type (and if you don't, hang out in rural America more). All your suggestion would do is let him know that he got off easy. A little jail time will give him the contemplative time he needs to decide whether or not this is the course he would prefer that his life take.
Because there is no "animosity toward birds" to be corrected. He just likes to shoot shit, all the better if it's a living creature. Ever wonder who shoots road signs? This guy.
We all know the type (and if you don't, hang out in rural America more).
This is a human universal, not in all people, of course, but the urge to destroy for some sort of twisted pleasure is hardly limited to the domain of shooting in rural areas (and, heck, there's way too much unjustified shooting of people in urban areas), it just takes different forms elsewhere.
Ever see someone kill their own company, or division of it, just out of some similar sort of bloody mindedness and urge to destroy (even if they also have an urge to create)? Or regress to childhood, there are those who love to build sand castles, and those to love to destroy the sandcastles of others.
The problem is indeed that this is not the sort of hunter who'd likely learn from such an experience, nor have anything to teach the biologists (I'd love it, but then again, bird recognition was taught to me by my father starting at 3 years of age, and really drilled in before I went afield with him with a shotgun (and a rifle for any bird but a turkey?? Seriously???)). Best to toss him in jail for "up to a year", plus all the fun of "the process", and tell him it'll be a lot longer if he pulls such a stunt again.
