By KENNETH HART — The Independent
Ashland — Two men convicted in the 2007 killings of more than 100 endangered Indiana bats at Carter Caves State Resort Park will be sentenced on Wednesday.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Edward B. Atkins will sentence Lonnie Wales Skaggs and Kaleb Dee Morgan Carpenter at 10 a.m. Both defendants face up to a year in prison and fines of up to $1,000.
The two were originally scheduled to be sentenced on Feb. 17, but the proceeding was postponed.
Skaggs and Carpenter, both pleaded guilty in December to violating the federal Endangered Species Act by crushing 105 bats that were hibernating in Laurel Cave with rocks, flashlights and their feet. The killings occurred on Oct. 26 and 27, 2007, and drew horror and outrage from wildlife-protection advocates.
Twenty-three bats were killed the first night; 82 the second. According to Carpenter’s attorney, Matthew Warnock, Carpenter, who is the son of Skaggs’ mother’s boyfriend, did not participate in the second round of killings.
The killings also led to the construction of gates at Laurel Cave to keep people out during the bats’ hibernation. The cave is one of four at Carter Caves that is home to Indiana bats. All four locations have been deemed critical to the survival of the species.
In a sentencing memorandum filed on Skaggs’ behalf, his attorney, Michael Campbell of Morehead, said the killings were the result of “ignorance rather than malice.”
Campbell also wrote that Skaggs was unable to grasp the significance of killing the bats because he is “the product of a culture which teaches that bats are bad.
“Lonnie looked upon killing the bats as other citizens might look upon eliminating crows from a cornfield,” the memo reads. “As difficult as it may be for many of us to understand this way of thinking, it is folly and foolishness to ignore its existence in eastern Kentucky.
The killings could not have occurred at a worse time, according to wildlife experts, because a disease known as White Nose Syndrome has decimated the Indiana bat population.
KENNETH HART can be reached at khart@dailyindependent.com or (606) 326-2654.
