‘Ribeye of the sky’: the hunt for a once-threatened bird reopens in Ontario

By Leah Borts-Kuperman, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, The Narwhal Starting next month, Ontario hunters will have a shot at sandhill cranes — for the first time in a century. The long-legged, grey birds with a nearly two-metre wingspan are widespread across Ontario from the Great Lakes as far north as southern James Bay — nesting in wetlands and swampy areas after migrating up from the southern United States and Mexico in the spring. Mark Peck recalls waking up at 4 a.m. to see thousands of sandhill cranes fly over the banks of the Platte River in Nebraska, where 80 per cent of the species migrate to rest and eat before flying back south for the winter. Like Peck, many of them travel from Canada, while others make the journey from…

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