Wisconsin has stable and growing sandhill crane population. A hunt shouldn't cause rancor.
In a recent op-ed, Tim Eisele lamented that consideration of a sandhill crane hunt will increase the divide between hunters and non-hunters. His heart is in the right place, but his piecemeal treatment only exacerbates the divide he fears. He missed the opportunity to provide complete information that would reinforce what I hope is a shared commitment to science-guided conservation.
First, let’s all agree: A healthy sandhill population is the primary goal. If a sandhill crane hunt pits any non-hunters against hunters, it’ll be for reasons having little to do with conservation.
Migratory gamebirds like sandhills are managed continentally using the best available science, by the US Fish and Wildlife Service. They say Wisconsin’s sandhill population, up 650% from 50 years ago, is very strong and growing more than 4% annually.
Notably, sandhill management during those 50 years included hunting. As sandhill populations have grown, more than a third of states implemented hunts. Three Canadian provinces too. And more on the way.
Wisconsin's sandhill crane population is stable and growing
Wisconsin’s population is over three times the USFWS requirement to initiate a hunt. Even the International Crane Foundation admits it will sustain a carefully managed hunt (not that they want one).
Hunt opponents’ concerns typically include arguments such as: "crane life cycles differ from other game birds;" "Wisconsin is a sandhill breeding ground;" "Migratory staging makes sandhills vulnerable to overharvest."
This could further divide us. Sandhill crane hunting season isn't a fit for Wisconsin.
I’m quick to agree these factors should be fully considered, and I’m happy to report they are on the job. Empirical evidence — annual population counts — for the past 50 years shows they are pretty good at it.
Before any hunt, the US Fish and Wildlife Service must approve a state plan that carefully implements requirements to protect population health under Wisconsin’s unique circumstances. If studies or experience reveal new considerations, those are incorporated.
A harvest is just one management tool — a tool opening the door to hunter-funded restitution of some of the $3.5M in sandhill depredation and mitigation costs absorbed by farmers in 2022. Alarmingly, Wisconsin’s DNR estimates 2.8 million acres of corn could be subject to depredation from an unchecked sandhill population, meaning mitigation costs could approach $28 million per year. That far exceeds what hunter-supplied depredation funding could offset — or should.
What sandhill population size, with its associated depredation costs, is acceptable? It’s farmers, not birdwatchers, who foot that bill.
As we’ve experienced with the Canada goose population, impacts beyond agriculture will grow. Aircraft impacts and aggressive crane-human interactions are already documented. If hunt opponents omit these truths as inconvenient to their ends, it leaves the impression that hunters are conservation-challenged.
Today's hunters have embraced science-guided strategies
To the contrary, today’s hunters have embraced science-guided wildlife management for generations, putting their money where their heart is. Beyond license fees, hunters bring home to Wisconsin tens of millions of conservation dollars through excise taxes on their equipment and through voluntary contributions to habitat organizations like Delta Waterfowl, Ducks Unlimited, and my own Wisconsin Waterfowl Association.
Hunters lobbied for a decade to increase the price of waterfowling permits, knowing these dollars conserve habitat critical to healthy wildlife populations. Those restored habitats also serve surrounding communities with cleaner water, flood mitigation, and higher levels of carbon sequestration.
This is scary stuff: Project 2025 spells out second Trump term in alarming detail.
Science-based management with a focus on habitat means waterfowl — gamebirds, like the sandhill — are up 34% in 50 years. In contrast, birds like those we feed in our backyard are down a cumulative 3 billion.
Consider Eisele’s underlying logic from a hunter’s perspective: I don’t want to hunt sandhills, so you shouldn’t be allowed. What does it mean for Wisconsin’s constitutionally protected hunting if a currently hunted gamebird with a proven federal management system that far exceeds population goals and which imposes significant agricultural costs, is prohibited for non-rational reasons? When the primary decision filter is emotion, hunters might understandably wonder what’s next?
Emotional connection to a species is important to its conservation story. But passion-blinded wildlife decisions which discount science-based management will tie wildlife manager’s hands and disproportionately impose expanding costs on farmers. And needlessly erode hunters’ outsized conservation contributions from which we all benefit.
Wisconsin conservationists of any flavor should not be divided on this topic. We share a fundamental commitment to a healthy crane population. The rest of the story can bridge Eisele’s fears of a divide.
Fortunately, an upcoming legislative study can seize the opportunity to get past superficial talking points. Bi-partisan legislators together with agricultural, birding and hunting representatives will deeply consider the state’s crane population opportunities and challenges. Our state’s conservation interests would be well served if they reach fact-based and science-informed conclusions.
Bruce Ross is the Executive Director of the Wisconsin Waterfowl Association (WWA). After a career with the US Coast Guard, he retired to Wisconsin two decades ago and took up leadership roles with state conservation organizations. WWA is celebrating its 40th anniversary as a 501c3 dedicated to restoring Wisconsin’s wetland habitat and encouraging waterfowlers’ progression from game harvester to passionate conservationist. For more information on WWA and the issue of sandhill cranes in Wisconsin, go to www.wisducks.org/sandhill-crane-hunt-in-wisconsin-2/
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Case is strong we can hunt sandhill cranes using smart management
