Wisconsin may soon be the next state to open up a hunting season for the sandhill crane, a species once close to extinction in Wisconsin.
Introduced by several Republican legislators to the Assembly on Wednesday, the bill would require the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources to authorize a hunting season for the crane.
According to Anne Lacy, long-term crane research coordinator with the International Crane Foundation, the species has seen a drastic comeback since the 1930s, when environmentalist Aldo Leopold estimated there were only 30 breeding pairs of the crane in the state.
“[Since then] the Migratory Bird Act has helped those birds to breed safely and not be hunted,” Lacy said. “During the depression when many farms failed and became wildlife refuges, numbers gradually increased.”
Kent Van Horn, migratory game bird ecologist for the Wisconsin DNR, said the Eastern Flyway sandhill crane population, which extends through 14 states along the Mississippi River, has seen a large increase in the last decade. He said there were an estimated 32,000 birds in the state in 2000, increasing to around 72,000 last year.
According to Van Horn, the huge crane population has been an increasing issue toward the damaging of corn crops throughout the state because the cranes feed on them when they migrate to the area each spring.
“Twenty to 60 percent of a crop can be lost in a field once the cranes zoom in on it,” Van Horn said. “In 2009, the US Department of Agriculture had 82 complaints at an estimated loss of $572,000 in Wisconsin. So it’s obviously a concern.”
To combat crop destruction, chemical companies have developed a chemical seed coating that makes corn seeds distasteful to the crane, according to Lacy. He said while this is a relatively cheap way to repel the crane, many farmers are not using the technology.
Both Lacy and Van Horn believe that the proposed hunting season is an attempt to reduce crop damage, but they are skeptical of its benefits.
“The discussion of whether or not to collect sandhill cranes in Wisconsin should really be a discussion about hunting, not crop damage,” Van Horn said. “We don’t see a strong tie there between fall hunting and spring crop damage.”
Currently, farmers experiencing crop damage can apply for a shooting license from the Federal Fish & Wildlife Service. According to Van Horn, there were 120 permits issued in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan last year, authorizing the take of up to 2,119 cranes.
Lacy and Van Horn agree that a hunting season could be established without harming the populations of the crane, as long as proper research is conducted.
Before any crane hunting permits are given, the DNR will have to propose a management plan to the crane Flyway Councils, and then to the Federal Fish & Wildlife Service, a process that could take more than four years, according to Van Horn.
If accepted, Van Horn said the DNR could authorize a three-year trial hunt and would report back to the Flyway Councils to prove the hunt is not harming the species’ population.
“We know how to manage hunting seasons, and it wouldn’t threaten [the crane’s] population,” Van Horn said. “I appreciate that people are concerned about the killing of sandhill cranes, but biologically it is a non-threat.”
