Heard something terrible on the radio this morning.

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MCgunner

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KILT AM in Houston has an outdoor show in the wee hours. I usually listen to it when I'm headed out deer or duck hunting. This morning I headed down to my place with my favorite rifle to sit in my big stand for a while and tuned in in route. The guy says there's a group advertising themselves on the net called "Cast and Blast" that advertises over seas for "hunters" (using that term very loosely) to come and kill a whooping crane. They have taunted the wardens, dare 'em to catch them. They get a HUGE fee, of course. If (and I hope it's when) they get caught, they won't be able to spend that money for a long, long time, though, if they actually do kill a whooper. There was a lawyer hunting down near Aransas a few years back accidentally (hard to believe, but I guess) shot one. Said it came out of the fog and what with the black wing tips and white body, he "thought it was a snow goose", like about twice as big, but what ever. :rolleyes: The guy turned himself in and did time, I think he got 10 years. They don't take kindly to you messing with them birds. I was duck hunting a pothole with a friend out on Matagorda Island once and there were two whoopers on an adjacent pothole and there was a warden up on the beach with a spotting scope watching our every move. :D

The Whooper population is at a high of 270+ birds right now. But, with populations that low and such a low natality rate, they can ill afford such crap. The guy on the radio said there were something like 40 federal game wardens and Texas Parks and Wildlife wardens tasked to this. They have helicopters and such and they're REAL serious about the game laws and serious as a heart attack about them birds. I just hope that catch 'em before they cause too much damage. This ain't the kind of thing sport hunting needs for its image, either. The animal rights crowd will point to it as being typical of hunters, no doubt, much as will all the stupid fenced canned hunts and such, only worse! We're talkin' the most endangered species extant and a bird that tens of millions of your and my sport dollars and tax dollars has paid to intensively manage. I just don't understand people who would do such a thing as this. It is beyond belief.

I think I've seen a pick up with "Cast and Blast" on the back window running around here. The area has about 2 fishing/duck hunting guides for every three population. Everyone and his brother has a captain's license, so it might be someone else. Most of these guys work at the plants around here and do it as a sideline on their days off.
 
griz asked, "Why would somebody WANT to kill one of those? Really, I just don't get it."

Unfortunately, the over zelous enthusiasm of our Federal agencies has alienated the local population in many places. The advice given to local farmers is simple. See an endangered specis, Blast and Bury. Wipe out any insects you see, just in case. If you don't the Revenooers will put you out of business.

Many people think the Feds are just out to extort bribe money from honest people, just like they sell protection to the drug farmers.

Let's face facts folks, most people think Federal laws are a joke, and they hate Feds because they can't afford to bribe them.

Cross reference William Jefferson Clinton lied in a sworn, signed statement about a Federal Crime. He didn't even lose his soft cushy Federal Job. Martha Stuart said something to a Fed in a phone conversation, about something that was NOT a crime, Federal or otherwise...and she went to prison.

Geoff
Who wouldn't want to be in any alphabet agency out in the lonely country, with nobody to watch my back.
 
Anyone who shoots one of these birds is doing all the honest outdoorsmen a huge disfavor. All hunters will be judged because of the actions of these guys will be remembered long after all the good hunters do. I'd love to run into a couple of guys like this in the woods.:evil: :evil:
 
Thanks for the explanation Jeff. I wish there was an answer that was win-win instead of the heavy handed way the gov handles protected species.
 
I think when the government can tell you that your land must sit there unused, essentially taking it for a refuge with no compensation, that is heavy handed.

I don't know enough about this situation to take sides. Of course I believe that we should value whooping cranes and I still don't see the attraction for "hunters" to pay to kill one of them. I am only saying that there are cases where the government has actually hurt the cause of the endangered animal by making it disadvantageous to find one on your property.
 
Like most things you read on the net, there is usually a sliver of fact and the rest is bogus. McGunner's account needs to be backed up....so far I haven't found anything to support it.

Just Googled up "Cast and Blast whooping crane" and came up with several outfits that offer Whooping Crane guided nature tours. Camera hunting might be more appropriate term, nothing about gun hunting.

Checked the radio station web site http://www.sportsradio610.com/Article.asp?id=93947 and no mention of this.
 
You don't need "heavy-handed" government to have problems. There is that small percentage of gun-owners who shoot road signs, any animal they see, or any other target of opportunity. Some of these Doofi will deliberately shoot something just BECAUSE it's out of season or rare...

Art
 
Like most things you read on the net, there is usually a sliver of fact and the rest is bogus. McGunner's account needs to be backed up....so far I haven't found anything to support it.

I did some googlin' too to try to get some confirmation of the story and I came up with about 2 dozen "Cast and Blast" guides and some that did the bird watching tour thing, so I don't know. I'm just repeating what I heard on a radio outdoor talk show. They come on early, about 4AM I think, and give fishing and hunting reports all up and down the coast and the guy knows the better guides up and down the coast.

I have no real idea if it's true, but I didn't find it on the net, heard it on a radio program. The guy knows folks in game management and law enforcement, so I can't just out and say he's giving false info, but I'd like to see this website he referred to.;) I was unable to find it. He said it's foreign, probably in other languages, don't really know. He says they cater to foreign customers.

BTW, those captains make a friggin' KILLIN' on the bird watching tours. It is in their interest economically to protect these birds. I know, met, one of 'em at the boat ramp in Port O'Connor once. He has a HUGE pontoon boat with deck seating on either side that holds a passel of people. The birds stay in the same general area most of the winter, some fly up the northern fringes of the refuge, some hang more around the southern, but he usually knows where some of 'em are. The bird watcher types pay him as much as he makes off morning fishing trips in his bay boat with a lot fewer passengers and he has to stay up on where the fish are hangin'. Some of these guides JUST do the nature tour thing, easy money. It is an economic boon for places like Aransas Pass. I'd venture to say the eco-tourism thing in that area brings in quite a bit more than the government spends on these birds, so the birds are beneficial to the economy down here. It is in the interest of local guides to have these idiots caught if indeed this story is true.
 
You don't need "heavy-handed" government to have problems. There is that small percentage of gun-owners who shoot road signs, any animal they see, or any other target of opportunity. Some of these Doofi will deliberately shoot something just BECAUSE it's out of season or rare...

Art

So true, all you have to do is drive around in the country and notice all the holy road signs to varify the idiocy of some folks (normally young fools I'd speculate). I know one guy I used to work with that is outlaw to beat 60 and he's a guide now, USCG licensed. :rolleyes: He's been cited for shooting deer off the road and his boy did time in prison for hunting behind the dunes on the National Seashore at Padre. They also go down there to the landcut area and sneak into the Kennedy and King ranch after Nilgai. The trespass laws have been strengthened in Texas, felony now I think, but it doesn't seem to deter this idiot. His sons are just like him, whole family if idiots.

Reminds me of an old joke, how to wind the war in Iraq. Just send in a platoon of Cajuns, tell 'em the limit is 2 and the season is closed. :D This guy ain't Cajun, just an outlaw. BTW, I'm married to a Cajun woman, so don't call me a racist or something. :rolleyes: It's just a funny joke.
 
10 years for turning yourself in for accidentally killing a bird?!

good god. i guess the guy had a false sense of justice, being a lawyer and all...
 
They'll probably just charge some schmo $2000 to shoot a sand crane (legal in some areas) and tell him it's a whooper.
 
I have sandhills on my place some years. They're all around there. It's illegal to take 'em this side of FM616, though Which runs about 20 miles inland parallel to the coast. The reason for that is, they don't want some dork mistaking a whooper for a sandhill. One year my place and the huge ranch next to it burned off in a big grass fire. It was a dry year and the back of my place was dry (someday I am going to have a tank built back there). The sandhills were flying over every morning, hundreds of 'em, and landing back there feeding on something. Some of 'em I could almost reach out and touch with the end of my barrel out of my tripod stand, they flew so low. Don't think it wasn't tempting. :D I've killed and eaten sandhill and it's a very mild, very good flavored bird compared to snow geese and the drum sticks are HUGE, a little tough, though. The breast meat melts in your mouth. I think it's the best eatin' migratory bird out there, personally.
 
Here in Arkansas they've "rediscovered" the Ivory Billed Woodpecker. It was thought to be extinct. In a couple of years of searching with advanced equipment no evidence exists. Seems the "report" was either mistaken, rumor or false. However, since nobody can prove a negative, especially in over 500,000 acres of woods, it remains a reason to close access.

If someone "reports" seeing an Ivory Billed Woodpecker on your rural property in Arkansas you may never be able to do anything with your property in the future except sell it to the Nature Conservancy at a big discount. No hunting, no farming, no improvements and maybe no access.

Does woodpecker taste like chicken?
 
Here in Arkansas they've "rediscovered" the Ivory Billed Woodpecker. It was thought to be extinct. In a couple of years of searching with advanced equipment no evidence exists. Seems the "report" was either mistaken, rumor or false. However, since nobody can prove a negative, especially in over 500,000 acres of woods, it remains a reason to close access.

If someone "reports" seeing an Ivory Billed Woodpecker on your rural property in Arkansas you may never be able to do anything with your property in the future except sell it to the Nature Conservancy at a big discount. No hunting, no farming, no improvements and maybe no access.

Does woodpecker taste like chicken?
__________________

There's a good side to the endangered species act, though. When I was in college, the US Corps of Engineers was wanting to build yet another reservoir outside of College Station near the little town of Millican. Of course, they needed an environmental impact study and the Wildlife and Fisheries Science Department at A&M forced a qualitative study of the habitat affected to find an Ivory Billed Woodpecker. Just one bird would halt the dam. After some time and much money, the Corps gave up on the idea. That's a good thing IMHO. At the time, at the rate of dam building, it was postulated that in 20 years 70 percent of east Texas would be under water. The Corps was on a dam building binge, I think just to stay busy and expand their influence in the world. After Millican, and a couple of other failed damn building attempts after the EPA was set up and the endangered species act was passed, they quit trying to submerge Texas. A lot of river bottom land was being drowned by the Corps. Now, at least some of it remains, though there are no un-damed drainage systems left in east Texas to my knowledge. The only real use for dams up there is water for cities and recreation. It's not the kind of terrain that is efficient for energy production and, heck, the rivers still flood.

One thing I remember about the ivory bill is, except for a white wing stripe, I think it is, you'd be hard pressed to tell it from a pileated woodpecker. It ain't like anyone, but a bird watcher or an ornathologist is going to know the difference. They occupy the same niche as far as I know and the pileated is very successful. I'm not sure what did in the ivory bill, but I think it was DDT back in the 50s. Lots of bird species were endangered by that stuff.

Don't mis-understand me, I'm not what I'd call a "tree hugger", but I am a conservationist and in that sense an environmentalist. That said, I think our primary root cause of environmental problems and the big extinction events going on around the world is human overpopulation. If we can't control our population numbers, there's really no hope for a lot of species around the world. We seem to be attacking symptoms and are unwilling to attack the cause and instill a need in the world for birth control. It ain't the US, either, it's third world countries having all the danged kids. .
 
Is the expense involved to everyone, in absolute total, in every aspect, worth keeping one species of bird around that will likely not have a self sustaining population for several hundred years?

When analysed somewhat more critically, is this not a sort of "if only one can be saved" endeavor at an outlandish cost?

-----------------------------------------

http://ussliberty.org
http://ssunitedstates.org
 
Yeah, LAK, but sometimes it just seems like a worthwhile thing to do. The Whoopers; the California Condor...

Some things you do just because it seems righteous. Sort of a Good Samaritan deal.

I remember how important it seemed to a helluva lot of folks when the Whooper population first got back to 100...

Art
 
If evolution is true, why are we trying to stop evolutionary processes in the first place? According to the doctrine, species were going extinct for many years before humans arrived on the scene to be blamed for it.

Disclaimer: I don't know a darn thing. But I live in spotted-owl country, and have seen firsthand some incredible levels of human suffering caused by that darn bird.

pax
 
(I didn't refresh the screen and didn't see pax's response)I work in this stuff every day. It's a beaurecratic(sp) nightmare. There is a nice piece of land about 10 miles from here that's can't be developed, sold, etc. the owner is screwed. His land is a natural habitat for the....drum roll please...New Delhi Sand Fly, and endangered fly. This fly is only alive a few weeks a year to mate, lay eggs and then die. the eggs will go dormant for up to ten years. These thing do not contribute much to nature. But some poor guy in Fontana, CA is stuck paying property taxes for land that should be worth millions, and he's not rich. There was a story about him in the news paper. How about the Fairy Shrimp. These things (brine shrimp) will develope a "habitat" in a puddle in a plowed field, then the farmer can't farm anymore, because he created a "habitat"

Conserving nature is fine, I think bag limits, and no hunting of some species is great. But I get sick of tree huggers that in one breath will tell you how we need to save the whales and in the next talk about evolution and survival of the fittest. If whales wanted to survive maybe they'd evolve:cuss:
 
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It's unproductive to take radical stands on either side of the issue. While there are huge injustices in the endangered species act, I cannot see where going off the deep end on the other side is productive, either.

If evolution is true, why are we trying to stop evolutionary processes in the first place? According to the doctrine, species were going extinct for many years before humans arrived on the scene to be blamed for it.

An extinction now and then is normal, but we are in an extinction event the likes of which the world hasn't seen since the dinosaurs died out 65 million years ago. It is somewhat catastrophic. IMHO, though, there ain't a whole heck of a lot we can do about it if we refuse to control human populations, the root cause of all the environmental problems in the world. Saving the snail darter or the spotted owl or some sand flea is putting a band-aid on, treating the symptom. That will do nothing, but make a few tree huggers feel better. To cure the disease, we need to get serious about controlling human birth rates and it's a LONG TERM cure, wouldn't happen over night even if it could be done. I'm a bit of a pessimist that it will happen by us. I foresee a huge human die off and perhaps this century. What we won't do for ourselves, nature will eventually do for us. It is inevitable IMHO. I'll hopefully be gone when it begins. Not a lot I can do about it, so I don't sit around worrying about it a whole lot, but it's fact. This old earth has a limited carrying capacity for human populations. We are as subject to the laws of nature as the deer we hunt.
 
This old earth has a limited carrying capacity for human populations.

very true, we're nowhere close to it. The US produces enough food to feed the entire world, just several reasons we don't. The world will reach a limit, but India isn't there, China isn't either. They're both very densly populated, the US is "underpopulated" as a whole according to world averages.
 
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