Please see this link to the account of 4 (COUNT THEM, FOUR !!!!) Whooping Cranes illegally killed in Oklahoma during the Sandhill Crane hunting season.
Possibly the 4 most unhelpful words in the English language are: I told you so. Any parent can attest to how counter-productive those words are. So let's take the steps needed to never use those in Wisconsin with regard to the inadvertent slaughter of Whooping Cranes.
Sandhill Cranes, photo Monica Hall
The odds of such a mishap occurring during a Sandhill Crane hunt in Wisconsin are higher than one might think. In case you’re looking for context of this argument, check out Madison Audubon’s “Stop the Sandhill Crane hunting season” webpage, as well as my blog posts “Sandhill Crane hunting: View from a hunter” from October 18, 2021 and “Still a ‘No’ for Sandhill Crane hunt” from November 5, 2021.
The fall hunt will occur when some Whooping Cranes will have intermingled with Sandhill Cranes. The immature whoopers are not as distinct from sandhills as one might think or hope. The conditions and equipment of waterfowl hunting also make an accident more likely. Waterfowl hunters love to hunt in low light conditions: near dawn, near dusk, in fog or snow. The reason is that waterfowl's eyesight is their first and best defense. The same will be true of cranes. In low light, the birds don't see as well and hunters better evade detection. But hunters will also not have as clear a look at their targets.
A Whooping Crane lands amongst Sandhill Cranes. Photo by USFWS Midwest
Secondly, waterfowl hunters use shotguns; each shell produces a spread of steel, bismuth, or tungsten pellets (non-toxic, non-lead loads are required for waterfowl hunting). While most of the pellets stay in a somewhat tight pattern, some stray much farther. Some of the new pellets have tremendous range, tungsten in particular. In addition, hunters are shooting at flying birds, many of which have fast, erratic flights. Many waterfowlers will remember shooting at one duck or goose and having another fall dead or wounded. All of this means that a hunter could mistakenly shoot directly at a whooping crane or accidentally hit one.
One might counter, this just won't happen; all Sandhill Crane hunters will have to take some sort of educational course before being allowed to hunt. First, even a conscientious, careful hunter might kill one accidentally. Secondly, read a regular feature of the Wisconsin Outdoor News, its Collars and Cuffs Column. Every month this lists a sampling of hunting and fishing violations taken from the accounts of game wardens across the state. I read it with horrified amazement. (For example, decades after non-toxic shot has been required for waterfowl hunting, the wardens cite many hunters for violating that requirement.) Every column contains dozens of violations, many of which are lame-brained and some downright vicious. Some number of hunters and anglers in Wisconsin are not conscientious, careful or even give a damn. Some of those will hunt Sandhill Cranes and God help the Whooping Crane that flies near one of them.
As upsetting as many of these violations are, the populations of deer, turkey, Mallards, Canada geese, bluegills, walleye, and trout are robust enough that the overall population is not damaged. But the population of the highly endangered Whooping Crane is genuinely precarious. Moreover, the Wisconsin-bred whoopers are occurring because of extraordinarily expensive and time consuming conservation practices. The accidental killing of any Whooping Crane is a real setback to their re-establishment.
A Whooping Crane flies with Sandhill Cranes. Photo by Diana Robinson FCC
An extremely disturbing possibility in the Oklahoma case is that the killings were deliberate. This would seem to be incredible but cases of thrill killing or sadistic killing of animals occur infrequently but, it seems, a few annually. These are awful, rare, and decried by legal hunters and hunting organizations. The connection between such despicable behavior and a sandhill crane season is that a season makes it easier for such perpetrators to approach flocks of sandhill and whooping cranes with hunting gear.
A Wisconsin Sandhill Crane hunt creates the risk of an Oklahoma debacle occurring here. Respectfully submitted, I don't think our Whooping Cranes should bear that risk.
Written by Topf Wells, Madison Audubon board of directors and advocacy committee chair
Cover photo by Mick Thompson
