"Duke of URL" macbenahATkdsiDOTnet wrote in message
...
In t,
Kevin Brooks radiated into the WorldWideWait:
"Andrew Chaplin" wrote in message
...

snip

Hawks are great flyers but not too bright (where have we heard that
description before?). We had a Swainson's hawk fly in front of our
troop position just as we opened in Fire for Effect. The unit
medical WO, our local hunter and wildlife nut, had it stuffed and
mounted, and it was on the wall of the Medical Inspection Room
until he retired.

Probably lucky he does not reside south of our mutual border. A lot
of the birds of prey are protected here. And, as is apt to happen
when lawyers and bureaucrats get together, the intent of the
protective laws has been twisted beyond reason. Find an owl from
the list that has been killed by a car and want to preserve it? You
may find yourself facing federal charges. Maybe you are a fly
fisherman who likes to tie his own flies and you collect a few
feathers from the carcass of a hawk or owl? Ditto. You actually
need a *permit* to hold feathers lost by the bird you may have
picked up in the woods (there was a court case involving just that
here in Virginia--in the end the defendent was able to show he was
"descended from the Iroquois" (and thus his possession was covered
by a claim of religious freedom) and won at the federal appelate
level. Ridiculous that he had to go to that level, much less that
he had to resort to his ethnic ancestry...

Don't forget the imbecility that only "certified" Indigenous American
Aborigines may legally have eagle feathers in their possession.

Nor the USF&WS prohibition against said "indigenous" peoples even giving
gifts that include such feathers to non-Indians (to use the polically
incorrect term), which IMHO is just further stupidity heeped upon that
imbecility you note. ISTR Readers Digest did a story quite a few years back
that pointed out the idiocy behind many of these "illegal feather"
cases--one that stuck in my mind was some woman who had made one of those
"dream catcher" thingies and sent or gave it to then First Lady Hillary
Clinton (and no, this is not an anti-Clinton diatribe, as I have no idea she
had any direct involvment whatsover with this case), and subsequently found
herself being confronted by a Fish and Wildlife Service investigator and
charged with illegal possession and istribution of prhibited feathers. IIRC
another poor fellow found a dead owl and stuck it in his freezer (can't
recall for what purpose...), and after being reported to same said service
also faced charges. I would not have recalled these incidents were it not
for the fact that my late brother was then into the fly-tying bit, and was
in the habit of stopping and collecting hair and feathers from dead critters
he saw on the side of the road, and I remember relaying the article's info
to him.

Brooks