Comment on FR Doc # 2011-18374

The proposed Kentucky Sandhill Crane hunting should be rejected. Sandhill Cranes look a lot like endangered whooping cranes, particulalry at dawn and dusk, when they’re most likely to be shot. The eastern population of migratory Whooping Cranes exists only because of the Herculean efforts of conservationists. Why allow hunters to shoot right into the middle of them? Recreational shooting claimed five of our one hundred precious Eastern whooping cranes in the past winter in states without crane seasons. Four were chicks, still clad in brown plumage. One was “Superdad,” one of the few successful breeding whooping cranes in the entire eastern population. A hunting season on sandhill cranes vastly increases the chance that collateral kill of endangered whooping cranes will occur. We’ve only got 400 on the planet. Why increase the odds against them for the sake of a marginal expansion of options for few hundred Kentucky hunters?