Whooping Crane Killed

[Wingman]

I wonder how much easier my job would be if I could walk into a meeting talking about hunters being the number one conservationists in the country and not have to worry about some Congressman's staffer pulling up something like this thread and asking me why hunters only care about the animals they can shoot?

Imagine the talk about Mississippi turkey recovery in the 1930's when we had virtually none.

[duramax]

how fun would crane hunting really be? I don't like to just kill, I hunt for the HUNT....so I wonder about crane hunting...

I mean I am all for it if it's ok for conservation and all that, not gonna be against ethical and legal hunting (except bears or panthers/cougars/puma/whatever they are called; but that's another subject for another thread)...but I wonder to myself...."self....do you wanna setup on some cranes in your new Drake waterfowl jacket"

Seems like legalizing the summertime stalk of the illusive egret cow bird is a comparable adventure...

I don't know, maybe I am misinformed???

You hunt cranes just like geese, decoys...calls...etc. People sometimes give the same worn out joke on how they taste that you eat the cedar plank instead of the bird, but I've heard that about countless other animals. My brother actually hunted cranes in Saskatchewan and enjoyed it. Definitely a challenge. They are like trying to scout snow geese feeding patterns, and are tough to predict.

[GordonGekko]

Food for thought...I am all for trying to save endangered species, and it makes me sick to see people kill animals "just for fun". But I also hate the way our government spends our tax dollars. I did a little research on The Whooping Crane Eastern Partnership. Almost half of its $1.6 Million annual budget comes from our tax dollars. This program has been in the works for approximately ten years. There are currently about 100 cranes in the program. That's $160,000 per crane($80,000 of our tax dollars).

So...my tax money can go to save an endangered species...or for welfare....I say cut welfare and multiply the endangered species budget ad infinitum.... I mean if you're gonna tilt at windmills pick the good ones....

Mottlett...that probably didn't help your cause too much...sorry....

on the other hand, it always seems like the majority of conservationists really only want to save the "cute" animals...rarely do you see many lobby over the plight of the eastern indigo snake, or the American Crocodile....

[aweyerman]

I live within about 40 miles of where the whooping cranes migrate to. And that whole end of the county is nothing but agriculture and swamps and attracts vast amounts of wintering sand hill cranes as well. Yet to even the untrained eye there is no mistaking the 2 of those. Whooping cranes are huge, HUGE white birds and have a very odd gate. The sandhills up there come in by the hundred sometime and sound like a bunch of flying dinosaurs. I think the guy who shot it is probably a local beer drinking methhead bubba that still doesn't know to this day what he did. Probably never going to catch him because that area up there is full of that type.

[three11]

So...my tax money can go to save an endangered species...or for welfare....I say cut welfare and multiply the endangered species budget ad infinitum.... I mean if you're gonna tilt at windmills pick the good ones.....

Welfare would be first in line to get cut if I beat Obama in the next election. Then I would go at the rest of the budget with an axe and start chopping. Wouldnt stop until there was a surplus of money.
Look...I dont have a thing against saving the whooping cranes. Its the jackasses throwing money at it(and every other special interest group in this country) like it grows on trees that I have a problem with. And for God's sake learn when to say enough is enough. You just can't keep throwing good money after bad.

[4dawgma]

Let them , or any other endangered species descide to live on your property and you'll sing a diggerent tune when the gov,. starts telling you you cant cut trees cause some damn woodpecker or owl lives in that kind of tree, or you cant bushog that area because that animal nest in that kind of grass, or you cant burn that area cause some snake or tortise lives there. Bash me if yall want, but i could care less about 100 cranes, spend it on a species that already has a sustainable population

Has this ever happened to you personally?

[Anatidae]

It should be about stewardship......trees, darter snails, woodpeckers, spotted owls, Bald Eagles, Turkeys, Bison, Labrador Duck, Indians, each other, whatever........you can't regulate stupidity.....only manage it the best way you can. I some cases our gumment is not a good steward of our tax dollars, but I would support every effort to preserve our resources for future generations - and to promote good stewardship of natural resources. We are (as land-owners) merely temporary caretakers of what God has provided for us and we came into good fortune of.

[grnhed]

just an FYI:

http://www.al.com/sports/index.ssf/2011 ... _spar.html