Osceola Turkey Hunter Fraud - 2026 Animal ForensiCon with Dr. Eileen Roy-Zokan
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.
Transcript
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.
