Hunting Season on Sandhill Cranes Will Not Help Farms
From the International Crane Foundation
For the third time in 14 years, the Wisconsin Legislature is again attempting to mandate the state’s Department of Natural Resources (DNR), to create a sandhill crane hunting season. The International Crane Foundation is disappointed by the legislature’s continued attempts to tie crop damage relief for farmers to a sandhill crane hunt, which is a widely unpopular proposal for the people of the state.
Though there is no evidence that a hunt will provide relief to farmers experiencing crop damage by cranes, there are other, more effective ways, we can support farmers experiencing these issues.
Wisconsin is a vital breeding area for sandhill cranes. As threats to North America’s two species of cranes (the sandhill crane and the endangered whooping crane) grow, our research tells us that now is not the time for a hunt in Wisconsin – no matter how strongly some feel about the issue.
The following are a few reasons a hunt could be catastrophic:
• Avian Influenza – Highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) is currently causing significant die-offs of sandhill cranes in the eastern population. In Indiana alone, at least 2,000 sandhill cranes died of the virus in February, accounting for potentially 2 percent of the eastern population’s roughly 100,000 individuals. This population migrates through the eastern United States, and is the population that would be subject to a hunt in Wisconsin, on their breeding grounds. HPAI is an unpredictable variable in the stability of crane populations.
• Whooping Crane Poaching – The fragile, reintroduced whooping crane population in Wisconsin, is highly vulnerable to accidental shootings. It is oft remarked that hunters would never mistakenly shoot a whooping crane, while hunting sandhill cranes, but that is not the case. Tragically, in 2021, the largest whooping crane poaching incident in recent history, occurred in Oklahoma. In one event, five whooping cranes – approximately 1 percent of the entire wild population – were killed by sandhill crane hunters.
• Out-of-Date Management Plan – The eastern population sandhill crane management plan is 15 years out-of-date. It is irresponsible to base major wildlife management decisions on an antiquated management plan. This should be updated, prior to any further discussion of a hunt.
There are multiple distinct issues at hand, including the resolution of crop damage for farmers and the promotion of a recreational hunting season. The International Crane Foundation advocates for decoupling these two separate and different issues, and implementing real, meaningful solutions to crop damage.
Advocates of a sandhill crane hunting season have long promoted it as the solution to crop damage, but we know a hunting season is not going to help farmers. The science presented by experts to the Legislative Study Committee on sandhill cranes last year, made clear that hunting will not provide any meaningful assistance to farmers.
In February, Gov. Tony Evers announced proposed budget investments of more than $3.7 million, to reimburse corn farmers up to 50 percent of the cost of purchasing seed treatment that discourages birds, especially sandhill cranes, from eating their seed. This proposed funding is not tied to a hunting season and would be administered by the state’s agricultural agency.
Since our founding more than 52 years ago, the foundation has been devoted to sciencebased conservation of cranes, and the wetland and grassland habitats upon which they rely. As next steps are taken in regard to these issues in Wisconsin, we remain committed to these central tenets of our mission.
The International Crane Foundation works worldwide, to conserve cranes and the ecosystems, watersheds and flyways on which they depend.
