Sandhill cranes (you really eat ’em?)

Just had a older guy from behind the counter told me they are like a 15lb quail?

  All white meat, you can actually hunt them in western Kansas - I have, and don't think I want to, but I just had to ask.  Do folks really shoot and eat them much, if so are they any good.

Spot

They are quite tasty. They taste a lot like spotted owl.......LOL......Kingpin

Spot... many kinds of cranes (not to be confused with herons) around the world are in trouble, like our own Whooping Crane, but the Sandhill Crane is still holding it's own, this is the one legal to hunt in the US.

I dunno about "white meat", the way I understood it white meat is a special kind of muscle found in the flight muscles (breasts) of chicken-like gamebirds (Galliformes: quail, grouse, turkey etc).  This muscle allows for very rapid wingbeats from rest, but is poorly supplied with blood (hence white when cooked) and the bird in flight tires quickly.

Most of the birds we shoot for sport are primarily plant-eaters. Insect, fish and meat eaters generally have a strong gamy taste when cooked, hence we don't eat "four and twenty blackbirds" in pies any more.  I dunno exactly the proportion of animal/vegetable matter is in the diet of Fall Sandhil Cranes but I would figure on dark meat, with a strong taste.

Birdwatcher

Here's a link, it seems that some rave about crane meat, others "toss out the crane and keep the brick" :o)  Cranes have more options in their diet than a lot of game birds, I'm guessing the taste depends on what the crane has been feeding on over the previous couple of weeks.

Birdwatcher

www.nodakoutdoors.com/members/phpBB/viewtopic.php?p=3602

I know folks shoot them and I guess eat them here, too, but I have never
known anyone who has actually done so.

I re-read your post and you said that white meat tires out quick.  So that sounds right.  A duck's breasts are dark because they use their wings more than a domestic chicken so they get that myoglobin in them.  I think that myoglobin does help to supply the muscle with oxygen.

Hiya Selway... I did some browsing around.  Myoglobin does indeed color meat, and functions to facilitate oxygen transport from hemoglobin into the muscle cells.

Turns out that the white meat in the flight muscles of gamebirds is specialized muscle tissue consisting of white glycolytic fibers, lacking in myglobin and deficient in the mitochondria usually abundant in the cells of muscle tissue.

Glycolytic fibers derive energy mainly from anaerobic respiration and hence are not limited in power output by available oxygen.  Lacking in mitochondria and myoglobin and not requiring as much access to a blood supply, these fibers also can occur at greater densities than those of regular muscles.  The end result is a lot of power, very quickly, for a short duration, presumably with a rapid buildup of lactic acid. The unusual power characteristics of these muscles accounting for the explosive initial flush common to gamebirds.

Thanks for keeping me honest :o)

Bird.