Captive pigeon shooter Troy Link hired lobbyists to criminalize drone exposés & to sell processed dried meat to schools against “Make America Healthy Again” recommendation
OKEECHOBEE, Florida––“A Republican megadonor got caught hosting a pigeon shoot. Then he got Florida politicians to change the law,” headlined independent journalist Jason Garcia above the August 22, 2025 edition of his investigative blog Seeking Rents.
The pigeon shoot Garcia mentioned was hosted by Jack Link’s Meat Snacks chief executive officer Troy Link at his Quail Creek Sporting Ranch, near Okeechobee, Florida.
“An orgy of cruelty”
“Troy Link’s guests shot “perhaps 15,000 pigeons used as live targets, in an orgy of cruelty,” over the weekend of February 24-25, 2024, Animal Wellness Action and Center for a Humane Economy president Wayne Pacelle told media the following day, after reviewing extensive drone video gathered by Showing Animals Respect & Kindness.
“The facility purchased thousands of birds, at a cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars, from a Texas operator who transported them more than 1,000 miles to south-central Florida for this latest killing spree by Troy Link and an estimated 130 other enthusiasts of live pigeon shoots,” Pacelle charged.
(See Jack Link’s beef jerky CEO pigeon massacre jeopardizes bald eagles too.
The exposure “led to some embarrassing local headlines for Troy Link,” wrote Jason Garcia.
“Turned to Tallahassee”
Troy Link might have responded, Garcia observed, by invoking “a 10-year-old state law [which] generally prohibits the use of drones to record private property or anyone legally on it.
“It’s a civilly enforced statute,” Garcia explained. “The law gives aggrieved property owners ammunition to sue someone who records them or their property without their consent.
“But Link — who did not respond to requests for comment — did not sue the activists who secretly recorded the Swamp Shoot Out,” Garcia reported.
“Instead, the beef jerky magnate turned to Tallahassee,” the Florida state capitol.
“Hired lobbyists”
“Link hired a team of lobbyists via a company called WolfCap Team LLC,” Garcia recounted. “Those lobbyists immediately began working with Florida’s Republican-controlled Legislature to turn the tactics used by Showing Animals Respect & Kindness, Animal Wellness Action and Center for a Humane Economy into crimes carrying lengthy prison sentences,” according to emails Garcia obtained “through a series of public-records requests.”
The bill sought by Link’s lobbyists, Garcia detailed, was eventually merged into “another bill dealing with illegal drone use,” House Bill 1121, introduced by Representative Jennifer Canady, identified by Garcia as “a Republican from Lakeland who is in line to become speaker of the state House after the 2028 elections.
Mega donor to Trump & DeSantis
“The lobbyists’ language was inserted nearly verbatim,” Garcia wrote, “into a larger amendment to House Bill 1121 that was approved during a March 19 committee hearing. The entire discussion lasted just three minutes.’
House Bill 1121 then passed on a 114-0 vote.
“Neither Link nor any of his lobbyists ever publicly testified on it ,” Garcia noted, “nor on a matching bill in the Senate sponsored by Senator Keith Truenow, a Republican from Eustis who also agreed to add Link’s proposal to the legislation.”
Troy Link, pointed out Garcia, “is a Republican megadonor who gave at least $500,000 last year to a Super PAC founded by Elon Musk to help elect Donald Trump as president.
“Campaign finance records show Link has also given more than $230,000 over the last few years to Florida governor Ron DeSantis — who signed House Bill 1121 into law on May 16, 2025,” Garcia mentioned.
Troy Link vs. Make America Healthy Again
The Troy Link response to getting caught hosting a pigeon shoot mirrored his response to a May 2025 recommendation by the Make America Healthy Again commission, headed by Health & Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., that Americans should consume fewer processed foods.
The $2-billion-a-year Link Snacks company “has spent millions on Trump campaigns and is advocating for support in the nation’s nutrition programs,” reported John McCracken of Investigate Midwest on July 30, 2025.
“Trump has been a strong supporter of the meat industry and welcomed Jack Link’s officials to a White House event during his first term,” McCracken continued.
The Make America Healthy Again commission report “didn’t specifically mention processed meat snacks,” McCracken acknowledged, but “it grabbed the attention of snack giants like Jack Link’s and other corporate agriculture groups.”
Hosted Trump fundraiser
Like Garcia, McCracken noted that Link “donated half a million dollars to America PAC, a political action committee founded and operated by Elon Musk, according to Federal Elections Committee filings,” and that “Link donated $1.3 million during Trump’s 2020 re-election bid and also welcomed the president to a private fundraiser in July 2020 at his Florida mansion.
“As a whole,” McCracken learned, “the Link family has donated roughly $2.3 million to candidates, committees and state parties in the last decade. The majority of this occurred during the 2020 and 2024 Trump campaigns.”
There have been big payoffs for the Link investments in Trump administration favor.
“In Trump’s first term,” McCracken recounted, “Jack Link’s lobbied for beef jerky and meat snack sticks to qualify for the nation’s Child Nutrition Programs, such as school meals.
“An Obama-era rule prohibited the reimbursement of beef jerky and dried meat products for school food purchases in 2011. When the rules were revisited under Trump in 2018,” McCracken explained, “the Food and Nutrition Service announced in December 2018 that beef jerky and dried meat products were now eligible for reimbursement as part of school snacks and meals. Jack Link’s currently markets its snacks directly to school food purchasers.”
History of wildlife lawbreaking
Heading the Jack Link Meat Snacks empire since 2013, succeeding his father Jack, Troy Link has come a long way since the Duluth Superior Telegram on September 26, 2006 identified him as “a founding member and past president of the Lake Superior Chapter of Safari Club International,” and went on to describe how he “received a sentence of two years on probation on September 20, 2006 for chasing a herd of mule deer with a helicopter in a Nebraska national forest in 2004.”
That was not Troy Link’s only brush with wildlife law enforcement.
(Daniel Leventhal photo)
On September 24, 2011, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife charged Link with taking “a migratory bird without authorization.”
A receipt indicates that Troy Link paid a fine of $325.00.
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Unless private money is taken out of government, animals will grievously suffer. We need government reform, but not the kind being undertaken by our current successfully evolving dictator.
It seems that “ultra processed foods” are A-OK with RFK Jr. as long as they are produced by his pals in the meat industry. Fast food French fries magically become “healthy” in RFK Jr.’s world as long as they are cooked in cow fat. It’s repellant to see some vegans still boosting and supporting this guy. He is NOT a friend of animals or animal advocates.