Sandhill Cranes

There isn't a season where I live in MN. But, there is farther north I think. Has anyone ever hunted them and eaten them?
I had one of my elk hunting buddies tell me he got one a couple years ago and said he didn't consider them very palatable.

I wish we had a season here. There was talk a couple years ago, but I haven't heard anything lately.

Rib eye in the sky. They taste similar to bald eagle.

There was a time we had thousands migrate through here. They changed their migration route when Crp came into being. I tried many different recipes on them and never found one l liked.

I've eaten a few and they tasted just fine.

I like seeing them around the neighborhood.

Draw tags are currently available to hunt them in NM. Draw hunt application is 8/18

There's a reason they are called ribeye of the sky

We hunt them here. They are very tasty. Kind of like turkey. Eggs are good too. They are eating berries here in the summer so have blue fat and quite good.

I have shot a fair number of them and would not compare them to ribeye. They are not bad, but not my favorite. I have not shot one for years now. If they ate as good as some people think, I would still be shooting them. They taste different than ducks or geese, but they are a migratory bird, so they have dark meat. They are fun to shoot, if who ever goes along wants them all.

Though I've never had occasion to eat one, I was thinking more like Blue Heron would have been my guess.

Taste ok
Mean when their wing shot…. Don’t send a good dog after an injured one
Can kill a limit every year in no time in Saskatchewan
They seem to like to hang out with speckle bellied geese for some reason
Anyone can hunt them here with a license and no guide is needed

Interesting that you should mention them hanging out with speckle bellied geese. I have Canadian geese that land on my pond and the sandhill crane hang out with them some of the time.

You probably have canada geese.....not Canadian

WI will discuss this again, but two major impactors are part of the discussion. One the international crane foundation is located in WI and WI is one of the leading if not the leading state for nesting Sandhills, so any season will need to factor in what impact as season will have on the population as a whole. Also the major corn damage is done in spring and seasons won't be until fall, so seasons are not going to be real beneficial to reducing crop damage here in WI as the cranes know where the later planted corn is (around the wetter areas) and they flock to those areas early in the season. There are retardants that can be bought and mixed in the seed and it works very well but adds about $30-$50 per acre cost, but then higher end seed corn runs $100-$200 an acre.

Bryce

We have zillions of Greater Sandhills nesting throughout Michigan. Every time there is talk of a season, the Birder people do 3 things......first they swallow their collective gum, next they crap their collective britches, then they raise holy heck and the Powers-That-Be go hide under their beds until it blows over. The worse part of the whole deal is the fact that the Powers-That-Be issue crop damage permits and a big pile of cranes are blown away and in many cases, left to rot. Funny thing about those permits.....they allow you to kill craness, but no decoys, calls, or even camo clothing is allowed during the shooting. Heaven forbid anyone should go kill a crane and have it appear they are "sport" hunting!! A friend of mine was the trigger-man on some of the farms locally plagued by crane damaged corn fields. He used a rifle.

Get a late season crane that has feed on harvested corn. You have a choice meal in the making.
Preparation is the key in fine dining.
Pterodactyl hunting at it's finest.

My buddy in Sask says they are great to eat.

Yeah but are they as good as spotted owl? Who was it used to have the can of 'cream of spotted owl' for their profile picture. It always made me laugh

I have got a couple and cold smoked them after seasoning with salt, pepper, and garlic powder and then baked them at a low temperature for a few hours. The family all enjoyed it.

Texture of a California Condor, color of a balk eagle's meat, and when aged a decade or more have the flavor of a great awk. Hope they are better than the trumpeter swans we have in Eastern NC. How do you cook the drumsticks?

google the dish " sex in the pan" to cook those legs of sandhills and swans
might not come up in the first most viewed response

You can hunt them in Texas, 3 a day limit

Shoot a bunch every year and the young ones are tender and taste like beef to me but not as tender as rib eye but I will eat them and enjoy them more than waterfowl save speckle belly geese. Not dark meat cooked up looks and taste like beef mix it with some beef suet and guarantee it taste like beef burger. I do think a lot of wild game needs to be handled and cooked right. Any bird you shoot that is gut shot and not cleaned and cooked right is not going to be great eating.

I've never eaten one, but a good buddy grew up around some of the last market hunters in central CA. They said a crane would go for 5 times the price of a specklebelly, which was twive the price of a mallard or pintail. Somebody must have liked them.

We have a big migration through our part of France every year but no season. I love listening to them fly over at night.

Pete

Noisy birds

Pete, are those cranes you have there the Common Crane?

Yes. They are the Common Crane, also called the Grue Cendree which translates to the ashy crane.

Pete