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Wednesday Sunrise Weather 5/22/13
Man Gets Fine, Probation in Whooping Crane's Death 3/7/13
Associated Press
3/7/13
CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas - A Dallas man has been sentenced to a year of
probation after he pleaded guilty to killing a whooping crane, a federally
protected species of endangered waterfowl.
Worthey D. Wiles pleaded guilty in Corpus Christi on Wednesday to violating
the federal Migratory Bird Treaty Act. U.S. Magistrate Janice Ellington also
ordered the 42-year-old Dallas man to pay a $5,000 fine and a $10,000
community-service payment to the nonprofit Friends of Aransas and Matagorda
Island National Wildlife Refuges.
Court papers show Wiles was a guest hunter at a Rockport hunting club when
he shot and killed the juvenile crane. He told game wardens he thought the
whooper was a sandhill crane.
Whooping cranes are among the world's rarest birds with a total population
of about 437 in the wild.