Re: Post Your Hiking Photos - Any Format
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Heroique
This may be hard to believe, it might even sound preposterous – and I don’t mean to sound like a crazy, out-of-control wildlife enforcement officer – but if that’s a red-tailed hawk’s feather (or any migratory bird’s feather), and you picked it up and brought it home, you’ve broken the law.
Even had you picked it up, admired it, and promptly set it back down where you found it, you’ve broken the law. Even if you found it in your yard, on your window sill, in the middle of a hiking trail, even if it’s road-kill, or window-kill, you’ve broken the law.
All thanks to the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, in force since 1918.
I know there very specific permits for Native Americans who collect migratory bird feathers for religious purposes, also for game birds in season, taxidermy, and researchers.
The fines are astronomical. Up to $15,000 for a conviction, even $100,000 for eagle feathers.
Now if that’s a non-migratory bird’s feather, or invasive bird’s feather, you’re good to go! :)
I was walking on a friend's ranch in West Texas a few years ago and found a bunch of vulture feathers. I of collected them and took them to his house where he told me I could not keep them. His wife, a Choctaw, said she could keep them and did. I knew about raptors and owls, but not other birds. That said in the early 80s my wife and I found a barn owl dead beside the road and took it home. She is a painter and at that time was painting a series of owls. After calling around to taxidermy folk I found out we could not keep it. We donated it to our local natural history where they preserved it as a teaching pelt.
Re: Post Your Hiking Photos - Any Format
Amazingly, abandoned bird nests, even egg shell fragments on the ground, fall under this law.
One might ask how the Hell picking-up and taking home, say, a cardinal's stray feather, or a fragment of a robin’s pretty blue egg shell, could possibly harm birds.
The reason is that people who kill birds to collect and/or sell these beautiful things would claim that’s exactly what they’re doing, just innocently finding things on the ground.
Re: Post Your Hiking Photos - Any Format
And yet having raptors and other avian species killed or mortally wounded by wind turbines on a regular basis gets very little attention.
Re: Post Your Hiking Photos - Any Format
As kid in MN, I used to bury this type bird when they died smashing into our new fangled Picture Window
often
I was and remain sad
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...b1e7a2a4_z.jpg1-Bird by TIN CAN COLLEGE, on Flickr
Re: Post Your Hiking Photos - Any Format
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Heroique
...The reason is that people who kill birds to collect and/or sell these beautiful things would claim that’s exactly what they’re doing, just innocently finding things on the ground.
Yep -- it is always the a-holes that keep us from having nice things...
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Re: Post Your Hiking Photos - Any Format
taken by Pentax 6x7
Izerskie Mountains - Poland.
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Re: Post Your Hiking Photos - Any Format
Attachment 219408
Rock Creek on Gabes Mountains Trail, Cosby, Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
iPhone 12
Re: Post Your Hiking Photos - Any Format
Quote:
Originally Posted by
diversey
Rock Creek on Gabes Mountains Trail, Cosby, Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
Excellent, hope you stopped off at Carver's for supper.:) At any rate, that's a pretty part of the Park back toward the Greenbrier area--here's one from Porter's Creek a few years back:
https://live.staticflickr.com/4507/2...0abffb75_c.jpg67porterscreek1AWeb by J Barnes, on Flickr
At any rate, I know that country pretty well so feel free to PM if you're back this way.:)
Re: Post Your Hiking Photos - Any Format
Re: Post Your Hiking Photos - Any Format
Ha, thanks Bryan--graybacks and hard rubber Vibram soles make for some interesting scrambling back in there, but if you've got an affinity for old growth forests it's a special place to explore.