Study committee on sandhill cranes fine tunes legislative proposals in penultimate meeting

The return of the sandhill crane to Wisconsin is a conservation success, but now the state needs to manage the population and the crop damage the birds can cause. (Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources)

The Wisconsin Legislature's study committee on sandhill cranes held its second to last meeting Wednesday, taking a comb to the conclusions, findings of fact and legislative proposals that will be published when the body finishes its work next month.

The 12-member panel, made up of two legislators from each party and a group of advocates for agriculture, hunting, cranes and the environment, met for more than five hours, appearing to get close to consensus on an issue that has been raised a number of times in the state Legislature over the past decade with little progress.

The resurgence of the sandhill crane in Wisconsin is a conservation success story, with the number of breeding pairs in the state reaching new highs after nearly being extirpated in the 1930s. But that success has increased conflicts with farmers — largely because the best land in the state for growing corn overlaps with the bird's historical habitat in the wetlands of central Wisconsin. Sandhill cranes cause an estimated $900,000 of damage to corn grown in the state every year, a number that is almost certainly an undercount and doesn't include damage to other crops such as potatoes.

Recent attempts to pass crane-related legislation have failed after being injected into the partisan politics of the state's divided government. A 2021 bill to allow the hunting of sandhill cranes died after Republicans invited controversial hunting advocate and rock star Ted Nugent to speak about the bill at a news conference. That bill was also supported by Hunter Nation, a non-profit that had played an instrumental role in the hotly debated wolf hunt that year.

Three years later, the work of the study committee has brought wildlife advocates and Democrats into the discussion.

Anne Lacy , director of eastern flyway programs at the Baraboo-based International Crane Foundation, said at the meeting that while she doesn't believe a hunt will solve the crop damage problem, the current crane population in Wisconsin can support a hunt — though she added the management of that hunt should be careful not to jeopardize hunts held in other states in the region.

"Cranes are a powerful symbol of Wisconsin's conservation efforts, an effort which all Wisconsin citizens have contributed to and have a vested interest in maintaining, certainly," she said. Science, she added, "allows a hunt when and where it is biologically appropriate for the species, and there are data which indicate that even a modest level of harvest of sandhill cranes could lead to a decline ... that could potentially jeopardize seasons throughout the flyway."

Finally, she added, "given that hunting will have no impact on crop damage, a hunt is purely a social recreation issue."

The committee discussed three pieces of legislation that relate to hunting sandhill cranes and much of the debate Wednesday focused on the very fine details of these proposed bills, such as what fees should be charged to hunters, how permitting would work and what rules would guide the hunting season.

Any bill passed that allows the hunting of sandhill cranes in the state would need approval from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

The first two proposals are essentially the same, with one of the bills increasing the wildlife damage surcharge paid by hunters when they obtain their permit. The third proposal mimics the federal migratory bird depredation permit program, which allows farmers to obtain a permit to kill a bird that has been destroying crops. The committee has criticized the federal program because it requires the farmer to leave the carcass in the field so as to not encourage consumptive uses of the animal.

"Hunters have a history of paying for opportunities, and so I like the bill with increased surcharges, and hunters have proven time and time again that we're willing to pay," Paul Wait, editor of Delta Waterfowl Magazine, said. "We're willing to pony up, we're willing to put that money forward to help with the crop damage fund, provided we gain access and opportunity, and that's what we're talking about here, from just a pure hunting standpoint, is, you know, providing a new opportunity for hunting in the state of Wisconsin."

The committee also spent much of the meeting discussing proposed legislation that would compensate farmers for the use of Avipel, a chemical that can be applied to corn seeds that makes the seeds unappetizing to the birds and protects the corn from being damaged.

The two proposals include one from the committee's chair, Rep. Paul Tittl (R-Manitowoc), which would authorize the Department of Natural Resources to compensate farmers for the cost of treating their seeds with Avipel if they can demonstrate they had crop damage in a previous growing season. The other proposal, from committee member and farmer David Mickelson, creates a rebate program through the Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection (DATCP).

The seed treatment bills gained more consensus support than the hunting bills, with much of the discussion focusing on how to structure the payment system, how the payments would be capped and how the program's success could be measured so future Legislatures can assess its effectiveness.

Rep. David Considine (D-Baraboo) said he was in favor of the proposal that puts the program in the hands of DATCP because "farmers, some of them, tend to distrust the DNR and that might not be news to some of you, but they trust DATCP."

Tittl and Sen. Mark Spreitzer (D-Beloit) had several discussions about what the ultimate text of the legislation should look like so it can pass through the Legislature and have funds appropriated to the program by the Joint Finance Committee, including reducing cost by capping use of the program.

"I could say, 'You know what, we'll do it a lot more,'" Tittl said. "And then the chances of it passing through Joint Finance are almost zero. But I'd rather be more realistic."

The committee's next meeting, at which it will finalize its proposed legislation, is scheduled for Dec. 10.