$11,000 in rewards for leads to whooping crane killers
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Louisiana and other donors are offering $11,000 in rewards for information about whoever shot and killed endangered two whooping cranes about a year apart.
There's a $5,000 reward for information about whoever killed one in Jefferson Davis Parish in November, and another $6,000 for tips leading to arrest and conviction in a November 2018 killing.
A 1 1/2-year-old crane's body was found Nov. 15 in a rice and crawfish field in the town of Elton in Jefferson Davis Parish, Adam Einck, spokesman for the Department of Wildlife and Fisheries' enforcement division, said Friday. A necropsy determined that it had been shot and killed a day or two earlier. It had been released in December 2018.
Einck said there's also still a $6,000 reward out for tips leading to the arrest and conviction of whoever shot a whooping crane between Crowley and Rayne in Acadia Parish in November 2018. That area is about 28 miles (46 kilometers) southwest of Elton.
State, federal and private groups have been working since 2011 to create a self-sustaining Louisiana flock of the 5-foot-tall (1.5-meter-tall) birds. A total of 158 cranes have been released in southwest Louisiana, and an estimated 75 — including three chicks hatched in the wild — are alive.
It isn't easy being free. Another 295 captive-bred birds have been released since 2001 in the flock originally taught to migrate by having ultralight aircraft lead them from Wisconsin to Florida, U.S. Fish and Wildlife biologist Bill Brooks of Jacksonville, Florida, said in an email Friday. That flock, called the Eastern migratory flock, currently is estimated at 86, including 12 wild-born birds.
https://www.chron.com/news/texas/article/11-000-in-rewards-for-leads-to-whooping-crane-15076125.php
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