Texas Man Trap

“Texas Man Trap” was a major market hunting investigation involving more than 100 officials from 8 states, led by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agent Antony “Tony” Marc Stefano. Stefano spent close to two years undercover, posing as a hunter and buyer, infiltrating a ring of market hunters operating in the coastal marshes of southeast Texas. These poachers were estimated to be killing and selling between 150,000 and 200,000 ducks and geese each year to high-end restaurants in Houston, New Orleans and elsewhere. The sting broke the back of Texas market hunting for waterfowl in an April 1956 raid that netted 53 operators, including hunters, restaurant, nightclub and lodge owners, and even local law enforcement officials.