The 2026 Animal ForensiCon in Orlando, Florida

When we think of hunting crimes, our first thought may be illegal hunting. In this case however, the hunters were the victims of a long-running scam. Dr. Eileen Roy-Zokan from University of Florida takes us through an investigation that started with a citizen concern and developed into a puzzle that would be solved through DNA and multi-agency collaboration.

This case brings together many of the presentations in the conference, and is a great example of the importance of events like this that aim to teach new concepts and encourage networking.

Dr. G:

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So one of the presentations

was an actual case of how

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forensics can help with wildlife.

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So once again, Eileen Roy-Zokan

here to share with us what happened

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with this case and what she did.

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Thank you for being here again.

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Dr. Eileen Roy-Zokan:

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Oh, again, it's my pleasure to

be here and talk about turkeys.

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Dr. G:

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So we are talking about Osceola

turkeys, is that correct?

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Correct.

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So can you...

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Let's start with the basics.

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What, what are those birds?

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Dr. Eileen Roy-Zokan:

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So Osceola turkey is unique

to the peninsula of Florida.

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So there's five subspecies of

wild turkeys in the United States.

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We have two subspecies here in Florida,

the eastern wild turkey, which is

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really in the eastern side of the US

and a little bit in the Panhandle.

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But what makes Florida unique is

we have one of the subspecies,

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the Osceola wild turkeys, only

found in the peninsula of Florida.

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So turkey hunters are very

passionate people, and they

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like to get their Grand Slam.

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I ki- I think of it as kind of

like, mm, you know, Pokemon players,

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how you gotta catch them all.

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Uh, that's how turkey hunters are with

all the subspecies of turkeys in the US.

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And so the Osceola is renowned for

being particularly difficult to hunt,

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and so you will have these game farms

that will, these game pr- preserves

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where you can buy hunts that'll help

you target Osceola in your hunt.

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Dr. G:

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So in this case...

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how did somebody find out that

something was not quite right?

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Dr. Eileen Roy-Zokan:

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Oh, great question.

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This started off with what seemed like a

one-off case, where an officer came to me

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and said, "Hey, we got a complaint from

a hunter that went to this game preserve

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to hunt turkey, and they took it to their

taxidermist, and their taxidermist said,

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'Mm, this is, this is not a wild turkey.

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This looks like a domestic turkey.'"

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And so they contacted me to see if

I could genetically suss it out.

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And honestly, at that time, we

did not have a turkey database.

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We did have some sequences that I said,

"You know, I can give it a try to see, you

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know, can we tell domestic versus wild?"

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But honestly, you didn't

even need the genetics.

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Uh, morphologically, you could tell that

this turkey was indeed a domestic turkey.

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So there is a, uh, heritage breed

known as the bronze turkey that looks

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exactly like a wild turkey, except its

terminal band on its tail feathers are

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white or very light cream, where in

Osceola they'll be very, very dark.

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They're also a lot...

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Domestic birds will be a lot bigger

than, um, a wild Osceola turkey,

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and that was one of the things

that clued the taxidermist in.

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It's not just the feathers, but this

turkey was about 30 pounds, whereas a

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wild Osceola will be 15 to 18 pounds.

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Uh, genetically, with the little,

little bit of data I had, it did

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group out with a domestic, so we had

both genetic and morphological data.

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That's what spurred this whole big

investigation, um, into this game

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farm, which took about two years.

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Uh, it was two years of investigations

that had our agency utilizing

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many different facets of our, uh,

law enforcement, uh, division.

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Uh, we had captive wildlife

investigations happening.

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We had our patrol units involved.

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We had constantly in contact with

the state attorney's office, getting

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feedback on how we should proceed

on things, and then we had the

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DNA part coming in, um, with it.

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Dr. G:

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This is kind of interesting because

we usually think about, like,

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hunting issues being illegal hunting.

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Mm-hmm.

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But this was actually more fraud

against the hunters, right?

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Dr. Eileen Roy-Zokan:

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Correct.

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This was fraud against the hunters.

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They were referred to as victims in

this case 'cause they really were.

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They were victimized out of their money.

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These hunts were going from 2,000

to $3,500 for a single turkey,

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and, you know, it's not just

the turkey you're paying for.

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You are being fed and lodged

and all of that, and you get

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guides that take you out.

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But what they were doing, this, the

owner of this farm was crossing wild

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Osceola turkeys with domestic turkeys.

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So they were in behavior

a little bit more docile.

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They would come up to hunters

reg- you know, just very readily,

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which is not something you

normally see with wild turkeys.

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They are very skittish.

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Um, if you've ever seen them in the

wild, you know they're quick to flee.

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Um, these turkeys were not doing that.

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They would come right up to you, and

these, these victims were being brought

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there thinking they're paying, you know,

over $3,000 to get a wild Osceola turkey,

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and they were getting them mounted by

the game farm's private taxidermist,

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who was in on everything, so he wouldn't

snitch out, um, what was going on.

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And so when the case that started

everything, when that hunter, when

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his taxidermist reached out, you

know, he had a code of ethics where

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he's like, "Uh, no, I could take the

money," 'cause it's several thousand

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dollars to get it taxidermied, and he

opted to actually do the right thing

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and, and say, "Hey, this isn't right."

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And so we had over two years, I

had feathers from these taxidermied

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turkeys coming in from all over the

country, 'cause people travel from

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all over the country to come get

their clam- grand slam Osceola turkey.

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And by this time, I had built a turkey

genetics database where we can do

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genotyping for, like, poaching cases.

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We can do genetic matches.

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I also built a sequencing

database where I can see there's

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a split when we look at our data.

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There's a split between,

genetically between wild and

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non-wild or domestic turkeys.

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And so using this data, I was able to

show, you know, where they grouped out.

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Did they group out more

with domestic or with wild?

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Um, was there a consensus between

the data, the two data sets when

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you're looking at genotyping

versus just DNA sequence data?

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And with that, I was able to identify

those turkeys that were hunted that

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were completely domestic or if they

were completely wild, and I was

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also able to detect the hybrids

between the wild and domestic.

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Dr. G:

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So it was basically just luck

to a c- to a sense, right?

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That this guy- Yeah ... decided to use

a different taxidermist, because if not,

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this gig may still be going on, right?

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Dr. Eileen Roy-Zokan:

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Absolutely.

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This taxidermist was, was the

key in, in unlocking this whole

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big scheme that was going on.

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Dr. G:

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So what ended up happening?

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Is the case, like, done?

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What ended up happening to the

people that were running the scam?

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Dr. Eileen Roy-Zokan:

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That's a great question.

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Uh, they started slowly, like the

guides, and I think the taxidermist

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was the first to, uh, plead out.

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Um- The

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Dr. G:

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bad taxidermist.

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Dr. Eileen Roy-Zokan:

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The bad t- Yeah.

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The bad taxidermist, yes.

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Um, he was the first to plead

out, and then slowly the guides

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started pleading out as well.

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And, um, in the end, the head of

the, the- Game farm, um, he also

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pled out, and so it's now closed.

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They have lost their license.

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Um, they, they faced

fines, and they also...

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Yeah, they cannot deal with

any turkey hunting anymore.

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Dr. G:

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Awesome.

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Th- this is a, this is a really cool

case because it just kind of brings

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this conference full circle, right?

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Yes.

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About how all the different agencies

come together and- Exactly ... and

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even going back to how citizens are

sometimes the ones to come up and say

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that there ha- a crime has been committed.

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You know, this taxidermist- Correct

... kind of started the whole thing, and

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then all the agencies- Absolutely

... became involved to help out.

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Dr. Eileen Roy-Zokan:

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Absolutely, and the different components,

and that's what I really love about

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this conference, is we get to see the

different ang- like, the different tools

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that are available, the different angles,

the different you can take in cases.

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And so that helps us start thinking

and strategizing and, "Oh, maybe

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I can incorporate that into this."

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So it's, it's been very useful.

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Dr. G:

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Excellent.

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Well, thank you so much.

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Thank you for your work on

that case because that's great.

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Yeah.

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And thank you for

sharing all this with us.

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Dr. Eileen Roy-Zokan:

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My pleasure.