FreeLists / tn-bird / [TN-Bird] Swans - Positive Feedback to Education Efforts

["Troy Ettel" <Troy.Ettel@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

TNBIRDERS:
Yesterday, TWRA received the following message from a waterfowl hunter to our 
web page contact e-mail.  

I post this not to pat ourselves on the back, but rather to show that progress 
is being made in educatiing hunters about swans and cranes.  This man also 
offers an excellent example of a conscientious hunter.  I have removed only his 
name and e-mail address from this post. 


  
> 01/29/03 10:28PM >>>
You have done an excellent job on educating duck hunters about swans and 
cranes.  I was in two different situations where the wrong bird could have been 
shot, but was not.  Although the cranes were in KY they were with in a rocks 
throw of the TN/KY line.  I was hunting with some of my high school wrestlers 
when geese started coming in from every direction.  It was great.  We had a 
group that were locked in to us coming straight at us.  I heard my guys 
safeties clicking off.  When I realized these birds were not geese but cranes.  
Geese were flying all around us making a heck of a noise but the birds coming 
to us were cranes.  I quickly yelled at my guys not to shoot, and the birds 
quickly sailed to our left.  They returned and brought back a flock of over 80. 
 It was a real treat watching them cyclone down.
       The second incident occurred on the Cumberland River.  The day before I 
had seen a snow goose dry feeding and it flew over my position and landed up 
stream.  The next day this white bird drifted down toward me I thought it was 
the snow goose again because I have killed several in this location before.  
But something didn't look right.  I held up my shot and when it floated past me 
the swan awoke and stretched out it's long neck and swam over to my goose 
decoys and went back to sleep.  
The point to my e-mail was that because of TWRA's efforts to get the word out 
and to make diagrams of these birds in their handouts, I was able to correctly 
identify these birds.  Thank you for all your hard work.   

Troy Ettel
State Ornithologist
Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency
P.O. Box 40747
Nashville, TN 37204
(615) 781-6653
Troy.Ettel@xxxxxxxxxxx

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