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  • 标题:SANDHILL CRANES COULD BE BACK IN THE HUNT
  • 作者:Rich Landers The Spokesman-Review
  • 期刊名称:Spokesman Review, The (Spokane)
  • 出版年度:1996
  • 卷号:Jul 18, 1996
  • 出版社:Cowles Publishing Co.

SANDHILL CRANES COULD BE BACK IN THE HUNT

Rich Landers The Spokesman-Review

In September, for the first time since Woodrow Wilson ran out of ways to spare America from World War I, sandhill cranes are likely to be legal targets.

Such news has a way of liberating money from tight wallets.

Ironically, the money usually goes to lawyers and public relations campaigns rather than to farmers, who could use the funds to help wildlife - and solve the problem.

Sandhill cranes are not endangered. In southeast Idaho, the long-legged creatures can be expensive pests.

After years of discussing the issue, the Idaho Fish and Game Commission tapped its emergency authority last week to reclassify the cranes as a game species. Now Idaho must petition representatives from the 11 Pacific Flyway states to authorize hunting permits.

This year, those permits would be given to state and federal agents who could kill up to 20 cranes in a small effort to reduce crop damage caused by the migrating birds.

If more hurdles can be cleared, Idaho likely will follow the lead of other Rocky Mountain states and issue public hunting permits to kill up to 120 sandhill cranes next year.

The Audubon Society's Idaho State Council and other groups are exploring legal action against the commission primarily because the cranes were reclassified with no public notice.

Such action is justifiable, although not necessarily prudent.

Other groups, however, have reduced the issue to a sniveling emotional level.

"It's really sad," said Debra Kronenberg, a Ketchum attorney who has worked to kill the idea of a hunt. "Cranes are viewed worldwide as a symbol of longevity and beauty, especially when they dance."

So what?

No one's asking to shoot cranes while they're dancing. The proposal is to knock off a few when they're pulverizing a farmer's grain crop.

The Rocky Mountain population of cranes are the "greater" sandhills, the largest of the species. The 4-feet-tall birds apparently were abundant in the early 1800s, but like so many wildlife species, they were decimated by settlers flooding into the West.

The hunting of cranes was prohibited in 1916 by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. Not until 1981 did a Rocky Mountain state petition to offer some hunting to counter crop damage.

In 1941, a researcher had estimated the Rocky Mountain population at 500. Gradually, the numbers have swelled to as many as 21,000, said Rod Drewien, a University of Idaho researcher.

Human development and tolerance precludes the birds from expanding much more in the Rockies, said Gary Will, Idaho Fish and Game Department migratory bird manager.

Drewien has worked with geese, swans, cranes and other migratory birds throughout western North America for 25 years. Yet he sees the advent of hunting the birds as a positive step.

"You have to look at the long-term health of the species," he said.

Although the birds winter in New Mexico, they spend summers scattered through Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Utah and northwestern Colorado.

Idaho holds the bulk of the summer numbers - 43 percent of the entire population, Drewien said.

The largest concentrations are in southeastern Idaho. About 2,100 cranes were bunched last year around Blackfoot Reservoir north of Soda Springs. This single area held more cranes than the entire states of Utah or Wyoming, both of which offer public sandhill crane hunting seasons.

"About 15 Idaho farmers are supporting 2,100 cranes with unharvested crops," Drewien said. "This is the issue. When thousands of cranes come in along with thousands of geese and ducks, the damages can be expensive."

Officials from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the agency responsible for crop damage caused by migratory birds, confirmed that no scientific study has documented the losses sandhills inflict on Idaho farms.

But Drewien joined other researchers for nine years of costly research in Wyoming to evaluate ways of stemming crop damage by cranes.

"They marked birds and brought in the former Soil Conservation Service to document crop losses," he said. "For the first three years, they tried hazing and proved that chasing birds just moves the damage to a neighbor.

"They tested lure crops planted where birds could safely eat and not hurt farmers crops. This worked. Farmers liked the idea. But where do you get the funds to do it? Refuges could do a better job, but their space is limited.

"Also, lure crops didn't do anything to control the growth of geese and cranes in specific areas."

For 15 years, the most effective and cost-efficient tactic has been limited hunting in specific areas, he said.

Partly because of this research, the Pacific Flyway Council has allocated 545 sandhill hunting permits for the entire flyway.

"If Idaho doesn't take a share of the permits, they go to one of the wintering states," Drewien said.

"Ask Wyoming if they've solved depredation problems by shooting 40 cranes a year, the answer is no," he said. "But by having more people in the field at one time shooting, the big groups are broken up and the damage is reduced."

And hunters pay a fee to provide this service.

"A person who draws a crane permit also draws an early-season goose permit and that helps, too," Drewien said.

Learning from Wyoming's expense, Idaho also has approved early goose hunts beginning this fall.

"Twenty permits is by no means a solution, but it's a start," Drewien said. "The Caribou County farmers are happy that their problems were finally acknowledged. They're excited and proposing programs to plant lure crops."

Indeed, while many anti-hunters are whining about the notion of shooting a few sandhill cranes, the Greater Yellowstone Coalition has stepped forward with $500 to support lure crop programs. This is the first such offer from a private group in the Rocky Mountain states, Drewien said.

Other wheels are turning at state and federal levels to divert funds into the program.

Compared to the effort that has gone into chasing sandhill cranes from field to field for 20 years, a little hunting pressure and spending $40 an acre on lure crops is the cheapest and surest way to deal with the crop damage caused by waterfowl.

More groups may come forward to provide sanctuaries that will lead to a secure future for the birds.

In this case, however, spending money on lawyers would be a costly ride to nowhere.

Copyright 1996 Cowles Publishing Company
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved.

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