Mrs Sloan, 83, faced a two-week contested hearing in the Shepparton Magistrates’ Court, where she was accused of baiting wedge-tailed eagles and other birds of prey using other dead birds and animals doused with a chemical generally used on crops.
In the hearing — which ended on Monday, December 18 — she pleaded not guilty to 20 charges of poisoning medium-sized raptors with bait, poisoning 11 wedge-tailed eagles with bait, seven counts of animal cruelty that resulted in the death of six wedge-tailed eagles and a whistling kite, poisoning a whistling kite, and five counts of possessing wildlife.
Mrs Sloan pleaded guilty to 26 charges of wildlife possession, including four kangaroo joeys and 22 birds, mainly galahs, cockatoos and ducks.
The case comes about after carcasses of 271 dead birds and animals — most of which were wedge-tailed eagles or other birds of prey — were found in 2019 during an investigation into the poisoning of the birds in the Violet Town and Earlston areas.
The charges before the court do not relate to all the bird deaths, only those that died from July 2019 onwards.
While the case has ended, Mrs Sloan will need to wait until next year to learn of her fate.
On Monday, Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning prosecutor Chris Carr told the court the case was circumstantial but asked for a ruling on tendency and coincidence also to be included.
He said the prosecution was applying for tendency notices in several areas.
These included that Mrs Sloan killed birds of prey using baits, as told in evidence from a neighbour who spoke of having conversations with her about it.
He said her admission that she had killed birds that were found in the freezer of her house because they were eating her vegetables — while different to killing birds of prey for attacking her lambs — used the same philosophy.
“It’s the most direct proof of Dorothy Sloan’s approach to killing wildlife that she regards as pests as it comes from her own mouth,” Mr Carr said.
The prosecutor also spoke of evidence that showed dead galahs and cockatoos in paddocks on Sloan land that had been butchered and used as bait birds.
Mr Carr said Mrs Sloan had these same types of birds “readily at hand” as galahs and cockatoos were also found in her freezer.
He also said that while no omethoate – the chemical found to have been used to bait the birds – was found on the Sloan property during a search on August 27, 2019, it did not mean there had not been any there before.
Mrs Sloan’s barrister Charles Morgan, however, launched legal arguments, saying that the prosecution had to prove beyond reasonable doubt that Mrs Sloan had laid each bait that killed each bird she was charged with the death of.
He said it was possible that Mrs Sloan’s now-deceased son Kevin laid the baits without Mrs Sloan’s knowledge. Or that one of the neighbours could also have done so.
With evidence from a pathologist that the baits could have been laid in 2018, Mr Morgan said it would be difficult to prove the eaten baits the birds died from were ones laid by Mrs Sloan later.
He said the prosecution would have to prove that, to be complicit, his client “assisted or intended for the baiting to be done”.
This, however, was refuted by the prosecutor, who said it was implausible to find that anyone was laying baits without it being an “arrangement or agreement” by Mrs Sloan.
Mr Morgan also argued according to the wording of the charges, the birds of prey would have to have been baited and died within only a few short days, but Mr Carr refuted this, saying the time referred to in the charges were there only to identify the charges.
Mrs Sloan remains on bail until the matter returns to court for a verdict in April next year.
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