Eagle Clips Land Flipper

When you're walking a land parcel before acquisition, don't forget to look up...and remember the story of one land owner who moved a little too fast for his own good in an attempt to capitalize on Southwest Florida's red-hot land market.

Last year, Mark A. Borinsky, 39, of North Port, Fla., sold a parcel for two and a half times his original investment of $59,000. Unfortunately, investigators for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service testified before U.S. District Judge James D. Whittemore in Tampa recently that one of the reasons for the land's steep appreciation was the clearing of trees from the property by Borinsky and Mylon Stockton, 36, of Noblesville, Ind. Also unfortunately, one of the 100-foot pine trees the men cut down happened to contain a bald eagle's nest.

In one of the largest judgments ever levied under the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act, Whittemore ordered the two men to pay a combined $100,000 fine. Some $40,000 will go to the Audubon Center for Birds of Prey, and another $40,000 to the Wildlife Foundation's Bald Eagle Conservation Fund. The fine more than wipes out Borinsky's profit from the sale of the land. Builders who find eagles on their land after acquisition usually rue the day they made the buy. It doesn't pay to venture where eagles fly.