CHEYENNE - A utility company on Friday agreed to a settlement of more than $10 million following the electrocution of dozens of eagles, hawks, owls and other birds in Wyoming.

PacifiCorp pleaded guilty to 34 violations of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. U.S. Magistrate Judge Michael Shickich in Casper ordered the utility to pay a $510,000 fine and $900,000 in restitution.

Portland, Ore.-based PacifiCorp also will spend at least $9.1 million on a remedial plan that will include retrofitting utility poles to make them less dangerous to birds, especially large raptors.

The utility has acknowledged killing 232 eagles since January 2007. Most of the deaths occurred in open expanses where utility poles provided the highest perches for raptors to watch for prey.

The poles were at least 40 years old and installed before anyone understood the electrocution risk to birds of prey, said PacifiCorp spokesman David Eskelsen.

Utility poles since the 1970s have been built in ways that protect large birds from electrocution. Such measures include protective shielding and a higher perch that keeps birds of prey above power lines.

But while the electrocution danger to birds had been known for decades, PacifiCorp had yet to retrofit the poles where the birds were killed.

"When you have more than 15,000 miles of power lines to get to in a service area, it takes some period of time," Eskelsen said. "We've tried to deal with problem areas first."

PacifiCorp didn't consider central and northern Wyoming counties where the birds were electrocuted to be problem areas for birds despite having older poles in those areas. Then a booming jackrabbit population caused predatory birds to concentrate in those areas, Eskelsen said.

"The reason that these deaths occurred was primarily because they were following their game populations into an area that wasn't a problem before," he said. "But it certainly became a problem."

PacifiCorp has fully cooperated with a U.S. Fish and Wildlife investigation into the bird deaths and earlier this year completed a bird protection plan for Wyoming, Wyoming U.S. Attorney Kelly Rankin said in a news release.

Since last year, PacifiCorp has spent more than $2.7 million to protect birds from electrocution, retrofitting more than 2,700 utility poles in Wyoming, Rankin said.

He said the company plans to retrofit another 5,000 poles to protect birds.