Hunters must take care in what they target
Americans with deep pockets are known to jet to Honduras for the local fishing. Bonefish, tarpon and marlin make for an attractive menu, although an exotic Central American location and easy rum surely add to the appeal.
Not widely considered, on the other hand, is the question of how many Hondurans come north to the United States for the hunting and fishing. The guess is anyone keeping count might not have to count high.
Honduras is home to things not readily found in the United States – tropical jungles being one, ancient ruins being another. But one temptation found in the states and not in Honduras is the bald eagle, the designated U.S. national bird although Ben Franklin thought wild turkeys might make a superior emblem.
“I wish the bald eagle had not been chosen as the representative of our country; he is a bird of bad moral character; like those among men who live by sharping and robbing, he is generally
poor, and often very lousy,” Franklin said.
Mr. Franklin also said, “Turkey is a much more respectable bird and withal a true original native of America.”
As far back as the pilgrims, so the story goes, turkeys have been featured at the festival table. Mostly in domesticated form, they still do.
Eagles, on the other hand, being illegal to hunt, capture, breed or kill, not many people who have supped on illicit remains have bragged about it.
One epicure, who claims to hail from
upstate New York and who identifies as Andrew Gray, purports on the website americasrestaurant.com to describe the culinary experience of munching prepared eagle.
“When it comes to taste, bald eagle meat has a strong aroma and a gamey flavor. As a muscular bird, bald eagle meat has a chewy taste similar to that of waterfowl, turkey and venison,” Gray’s website says. “Some people find the taste of bald eagle meat similar to chicken.”
But of course.
A hash of untranslatable hope and hunger might make explicable how it happened that two Hondurans got themselves in a fix when authorities in Nebraska discovered they had gunned down a bald eagle with the intent of making a meal of the thing.
The men, both 20, reportedly don’t speak English. The local sheriff pieced together the plausibility the men thought they were harvesting a vulture. Reports offered no hints about the tastiness of buzzard, but be sure to marinate.
Another odd incident surfaced within days of the other.
A New York hunter appeared in a Connecticut courtroom to answer charges related to the crossbow killings in late November of two pet German shepherds. He’d made what he described as a “split-second” decision to kill someone’s German shepherds he’d mistaken for coyotes.
Such crimes generally are given appropriate seriousness when they reach a courtroom, where a judge has the last word. Fines and jail time deliver a message understood in any language.
outdoors@dispatch.com