Behind the Badge - The Ugly Coot
The Ugly Coot
District Game Warden Erik Schmidt
Generally speaking, the American coot probably isn’t in line to win any beauty contests in the waterfowl world.
A quick online search shows it has never graced the annual Federal Waterfowl Stamp (although it has been on some individual state stamps).
Its young are even more homely looking, possessing a look and color scheme only a mother could love.
All that said, they are a game bird and, while not entirely common at all, they are targeted by some waterfowl hunters.
Other times they are simply targeted because waterfowl hunters are bored, and the coot is the only bird presenting any sort of action.
Sometimes though, I’ve found in my career the unsightly coot is mistaken for another type of bird that is not a game bird.
One such occurrence happened a couple years back.
In the fall of 2022, another game warden and I were patrolling my district checking waterfowl hunters.
It was a warm October day and most hunters were already out of the field.
As we drove through one of my small towns, I saw a hunter unpacking hunting gear at a rental unit.
We stopped and spoke with the hunter and asked how his hunt was going.
He told us the ducks weren’t really around and he was having a tough go of it.
When I asked him if he had shot anything, he told me all he had shot was coots and proudly showed me the coots he had shot along with his hunting license.
While I was looking at the hunter’s coots, one of them looked a little different from the others.
My partner looked at me and I could tell he was thinking the same thing.
One was not a coot.
When we asked the hunter if he was sure all of his birds were coots, he responded with a little trepidation in his voice when he said ‘yeah, I think so.’
As it turned out, one of his ‘coots’ was actually a horned grebe.
The hunter informed us because the ducks weren’t flying, he decided to take the opportunity at some coots.
Because the grebe and the coot looked similar, but not the same, he believed it to be a juvenile coot.
The hunter acknowledged his mistake and informed me target identification was his responsibility.
Ultimately, a citation for killing a harmless bird was issued and I took the ‘young coot’ off our hunter’s hands.