That story about the 2 Louisiana Whooping Cranes just makes me incredibly sad, and angry, too. I couldn't bring myself to try to enlarge the photo to identify the bird by the leg band. The photos with the news story at that link appeared to be the same bird in both photos anyway, so I think it was just a photo of a Whooper, and not neessarily either of the two that were shot and killed. I can't for the life of me come up with any reason why anyone would shoot an endangered bird, such as a Whooping Crane, and whoever did this, killed two of them! I find it hard to believe any hunter would mistake a Whooping Crane for any duck or goose that could possibly being legally hunted at that time. What scum does that? ... Makes my stomach turn. Wish I had never opened this thread today. I could have been just fine not ever knowing about this since I can do absolutely nothing to stop any jerk that would do any such thing as that. I hope the person is found and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, and when they are, I hope their crime and penalty are plastered across TV news and papers and internet for all to see... That way at least some of the people who might ever do such a thing might think twice if they knew that if they did, they definitely would be put behind bars, and for much longer than they ever imagined, and also would suffer significant financial losses from a big fine, too. News outlets need to spend more time and effort putting this kind of story out into the media world - which would do a lot more good than spinning their wheels 24/7 re-telling the same old political junk-story-of-the-day sort of "tabloid trainwreck news." There... I said it.