<p>Eight south Georgia quail plantations have agreed to $360,000 in fines for setting out poisoned eggs to kill predators of the game birds, the Environmental Protection Agency said.</p><p>The settlement announced Friday ends a four-year prosecution of the hunting preserves that could have led to more than $10 million in fines for violating laws regulating use of pesticides.</p><p>A government official said the case served to stop a practice that presented a public health risk.</p><p>J.P. Suarez, an EPA assistant administrator, said the agency hopes the fines will serve to deter other operations from misusing pesticides.</p><p>Plantation managers were accused of setting out chicken eggs laced with the pesticide Furadan to kill foxes, possums, coyotes and other creatures that eat quail eggs. In 1999, state wildlife rangers found three alligators, several raccoons, squirrels, snakes, a red-tail hawk, songbirds and other species dead near chicken eggs containing the poison.</p><p>A state investigation targeted 16 plantations. Four of them _ Kolomoki near Blakely, Albemarle and Ecila near Albany and Nochaway in Leary _ were required to pay fines of a few thousand dollars to the state Department of Agriculture, which regulates pesticide use in the state.</p><p>Two former officers with the state Department of Natural Resources claimed political interference ended their investigation of the illegal poisoning, which also was blamed for the deaths of hunting dogs in southwest Georgia.</p><p>In October 2002, the EPA reopened the investigation.</p>
