One of these days, when we are not so busy and the kids are on their own, I dream of the day when Tim and I can once again meet near Cecilia, Ky and bag a sandhill crane:
A plan to allow hunting of once-endangered sandhill cranes in Kentucky has cleared a major hurdle by securing the approval of the federal government.With the endorsement of Kentucky’s crane hunt plan given this week by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Services officials now say they are on pace to open the hunt as planned as early as Dec. 17. ...
Crane numbers in the Eastern United States had been depressed for decades. But hunting bans and habitat conservation have helped restore the population of the big birds, which stand 5 feet tall with a 6-foot wingspan.
In Kentucky, the cranes gather each winter by the thousands near Cecilia, in the Barren River Lake Wildlife Management Area and Barren River Lake State Resort Park, and are popular attractions for birdwatchers.
Hunters argue that it’s their right to harvest the birds for sport and meat. Others, however, contend that there’s no evidence that the birds are a nuisance in Kentucky, which had been argued as a justification for a hunt in other states.
Of course, we'll have both passed our online crane identification test so that we don't accidently shoot a whooping crane (and we'll have also passed our gun safety course so that we don't accidently shoot anything else).
