SARASOTA — On a recent morning, an animal rescue volunteer set out to save a sandhill crane with a broken leg limping round just off of busy U.S. 41 in Sarasota.
The bird was later named “Sandhill Crane Doe,” according to Charlotte Arndt, of the Arndt Animal Center for Rehabilitation and Environmental Education.
Crane Doe didn’t make the mission easy.
While Arndt and a man named Brian, who had called to report the injury, approached the bird with a cast net, he managed to evade rescuers, hobbling away.
Determined, Arndt pursued the spry crane.
She followed the bird into a pond. The first step was knee-deep. After another step, the mud sucked her waist deep.
Luckily for Arndt and the frightened crane, she received some help getting out of the muck.
She didn’t give up, continuing the chase and with periodic attempts at throwing the net over the bird.
“I can’t throw a casting net,” Arndt said, revealing she missed the bird by a wide margin.
She works in TV ratings as a full-time day job, not as a professional fisherman.