I was wondering what kind of dog retrieves birds like these. Considering how sharp their bills are, I don’t think it would be safe. (That’s why dogs should never retrieve shot crows.)
We don’t have many of these in West Virginia, and when they pop up, everyone assumes they are whooping cranes. And the line is “You better not shoot those, or you’ll go to jail!”
Of course, where I live people think great blue herons are cranes.
That idiom come from the Scots dialect in Northern Ireland, where the grey herons are (were?) called “hern cran” (heron crane).
the incredibly stupid thing is that there are hunting seasons on sandhills in the areas where (ok, rarely) an actual whooping crane shows up. Why would anyone want to shoot a crane, anyway?
What happens if they kill one of those whoophill hybrids?
That’s what happened when they tried to make migratory whooping cranes by placing whooping crane eggs in sandhill nests. The young whooping cranes imprinted on sandhills and paired off with sandhills.
And hybrid offspring, which look like big sandhills, were produced.
oh, well then! :–) that’s good news…
according to some fellow-members of a UK-forum,
SANDHILLS + WHOOPERS are the same species –
just like dogs + wolves! :-D it’s true…
they’re interfertile? they;’re THE SAME SPECIES.
see? whoopers aren’t endangered!
they’re just a color-variant, like a blue Arctic fox,
a blue snow-goose, a cross-fox, and so on.
i can’t wait to let the E-P-A know…
Hurrah! :-D off to send a flurry of e-mails,
— terry
terry pride, APDT-Aus, apdt#1827, CVA, TDF
Please note that wolves and coyotes are interfertile and hybridization has been very important to wolves in the Eastern half of the continent.
And the hybridization has also affected coyotes.
However, they are still separate species because they split much longer than the 40,000 or so years that dogs and wolves did.
Man simply cannot create a species.
We’ve not been around that long, and all the big genome wide studies have found that dogs and wolves have constantly been exchanging genes– much more so than wolves and coyotes have.
I’m not talking narrow studies of European wolves and modern dog populations.
The big genome wide studies say that the differences between dogs and wolves are piddling.
And the differences we see are the result of lots of tandem repeats in Canis lupus DNA and the fact that just slight modifications on just a few genes can lead to big phenotype and brain chemistry components.
No other animal has this ability– at least it hasn’t been found yet.
I can send you the studies.
Before people persecuted wolves, dogs and wolves regularly interbred. Regularly.
Not so with coyotes and wolves.
And these cranes will not interbreed unless someone imprints on the other species.
Nice try.
But species isn’t just interfertility.
hey, it wasn’t *-my-* belief –
i don’t think interfertile means identical, by any means.
this was their ‘decisive proof':
—————————————-
Originally Posted by http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=species
species (biology) taxonomic group whose members can interbreed
————————————
i even pointed out that 2 large-psittacine species in Australia who had previously occupied entirely different areas of the country,
were forced to share the same overcrowded remaining forest; they ate different diets, looked very dissimilar, and had many different vocalizations.
but they were both CAVITY nesters, and one bred earlier than the other; so species-A would already have eggs in the nest, species-B would fight over the nesting-cavity, and sometimes they’d rear the orphaned egg[s] as their own.
the hybrids grew-up looking like one species –
and *sounding* like their step-parents.
they were also visually-imprinted on their step-parents, so they mated [if they mated - many did not successfully pair] with the ‘wrong’ species…
and produced fertile chicks.
see?
according to my fellow-forum members, ergo, they -are- the same species.
crazy…
a serval is not the same species as a housecat.
a Savannah is not a ‘domestic’ animal.
and a sandhill is not a whooper.
bummer, eh?
– terry
Domestic cats are the same species as the European (Scottish) wildcat.
The African wildcat, albeit from the Mesopotamian subpopulation, is the ancestor.
People like to play this game with me.
I think with dogs and wolves, it’s just that we’re dealing with a species that has some unique genetic qualities.
And we’re also dealing with two animals that have vast cultural significance– and probably always have.
Coyotes, golden jackals, and Ethiopian wolves are separate species from Canis lupus.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v438/n7069/pdf/nature04338.pdf
I’m still waiting for someone to show me a real (as in DNA certified) cross between a black-backed or side-striped jackal and dog.
All I’ve received is photos of dogs that have a jackalish look.
very very few of these hybrids were produced in the wild. I believe none survive now. That x-nesting experiment was a failure (because the whooper chicks were never able to recognize another whooper but they didn’t pair off sexually with sandhills either) and the whooper remains very very endangered.
All the more reason not to take a chance
You can hunt rails in West Virginia.
Rails.
That just sounds weird to me.
You’re telling me its wierd to hunt rails? Dont you guys eat squirrels down there?
I think it’s weird to hunt rails, just because they are pretty little birds.
Squirrel is excellent. In fact, it’s so good that you can order it at some of the finest restaurants in London:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/07/dining/07squirrel.html?_r=2&pagewanted=all
No one in Michigan would even think of shooting a sandhill crane. They are one of the most successful “comeback stories” in the state– (see http://www.bakersanctuary,org/crane.html). There are several nesting pairs near my house (and more than 200 in the next county over). Their flight, and their call, bring to mind something prehistoric.
The first time my Golden Retriever saw one feeding in the field behind the house, he looked back at me with a look that said very plainly, “I don’t have to retrieve THAT, do I??”
“Considering how sharp their bills are, I don’t think it would be safe. (That’s why dogs should never retrieve shot crows.)”
On the other side of the pond retrievers are widely used in crow & other pest bird shooting… ;)
Generally, in America, they can retrieve pigeons but no corvids.
In a state were sandhills usually outnumber herons, it can be fun to try to pick out the herons. Unless you have great light and can easily see the red on the sandhill’s head, both birds look similar at a glance. ID often comes from calls or posture/behavior. Cranes probe, herons stalk. Cranes have a longer, higher call, while heron calls and short, repetitive and deep.
Cranes fly with their necks out.
Herons tuck their necks in.
We have lots of great blues in WV.