March 7, 2013
From TheRepublic.com
CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — Worthey D. Wiles pleaded guilty and was sentenced to a year of probation after he pleaded guilty to killing a whooping crane, a federally protected species of endangered waterfowl.
U.S. Magistrate Janice Ellington also ordered Wiles 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.
Whooping cranes are among the world’s rarest birds with a total population of about 437 in the wild.