Endangered whooping cranes could soon return to Wisconsin
NEXT YEAR Wisconsin may have whooping cranes, among the world's rarest birds. The tentative plan is to release them in the Necedah National Wildlife Refuge and/or the Meadow Valley State Wildlife Area. The refuge and wildlife area are part of a wetland complex totaling over 50,000 acres.
It'll be a migratory flock, nesting in Wisconsin and wintering in Florida. A few problems remain, like getting the approval of all the states on the flyway between here and Florida, but at the moment things look favorable.
Some hunters seem to have trouble telling the difference between the legally hunted snow goose and the protected trumpeter swan. There's a chance Wisconsin will someday have a sandhill crane season, and will hunters be able to tell sandhills from whoopers? Larry Wargowsky, manager at Necedah, doesn't think it will be a problem. Whooping cranes would migrate by Sept. 15, he said, before any bird hunting season begins.
Though never numerous, whoopers were once found in much of the United States, including Wisconsin. By 1942 there were only 16 whooping cranes left in a flock that migrated between Aransas National Wildlife Refuge on the Gulf Coast of Texas and Wood Buffalo National Park in Canada, and all whoopers alive today are descended from these birds. Does this mean the species has a dangerous lack of genetic diversity?
Richard Urbanek of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, the biologist for the project, says it's being watched but probably doesn't represent a serious problem. The International Crane Foundation near Baraboo agrees.
The birds that nest in Canada constitute the only migratory whooping crane flock in the world. There's an attempt under way to establish a non-migratory flock at Kissimmee Prairie, Florida. It produced chicks this year for the first time, but it's subject to severe predation by bobcats and success is not yet certain.
The reason for establishing a flock in Wisconsin is to prevent a single natural disaster from wiping out all the migratory whoopers.
One problem is that while the birds have the migratory instinct, nature doesn't tell them where to go. The whoopers that fly between Aransas and Wood Buffalo find their way because experienced birds lead them. But there will be no experienced birds among the ones to be released at Necedah and Meadow Valley, so the plan is to have them follow an ultralight airplane to Florida. The following spring they'll be expected to find their own way back to Wisconsin.
Why would they follow a plane? Give them a bonding call, said Urbanek, the project biologist, and they'll follow you just about anywhere. This will be tested this year with young sandhill cranes.
The plan is to release 20 captive-bred whooper chicks every year for 10 years, reared by people dressed in crane costumes and using whooping crane hand puppets so the birds don't imprint on humans. Urbanek doesn't think predation will be as severe in Wisconsin as it has been in Florida. We have fewer bobcats, for one thing. And he doesn't believe predation will be serious when the Wisconsin whoopers get to Florida, either, since the Chassahowitzka National Wildlife Refuge where they'll winter is made up largely of small coastal islands with few predators.
Among those cooperating in the whooping crane reintroduction are the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, the Wisconsin DNR, the Wisconsin National Resources Foundation and other government and private organizations.
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AS EXPECTED, the majority voted for a mourning dove season at the April 10 fish and wildlife rules hearings, both in Portage County and in most of the rest of Wisconsin. That dumps it into the lap of the Natural Resources Board, which will make the final decision, subject to veto by legislative committees. Whatever is decided, a substantial segment of the population will be antagonized.
A considerable amount of exaggeration was voiced during the weeks preceding the dove vote. Like, "Next you'll want to shoot all the songbirds." (Not likely, nor are Shetland ponies and bald eagles at risk.) Or, "You'll wipe out the doves just like they did the passenger pigeon." (Right, just as crows were exterminated after it became legal to hunt them.)
From the pro-dove hunting side was heard, "If they don't let us shoot mourning doves, pretty soon they'll close all the hunting seasons. Then they'll come and take away our guns." (Proving that paranoia is alive and well, and that our future happiness relies on our ability to hunt doves.)
Patricia Randolph, Madison, an anti-hunter who got elected to the Conservation Congress last year, was quoted as saying more dove hunting opponents didn't show up because the DNR mailed information about the hearings only to hunters. Gee, I'm a hunter. What happened to my DNR letter?
It's fairly safe to predict that regulated hunting, if it comes to pass, will have no noticeable impact on the population of the prolific mourning dove. Still, there are those, including some hunters, who take the position that just because a species can be hunted doesn't mean it has to be hunted.
What really ought to concern us is this: Will it sour relations between hunters, most of whom are good environmentalists, and the rest of the public, most of whom also want to protect the environment? And long-range, will this affect the right to hunt?
Maybe. Maybe not. Perhaps, after a few years, dove hunting will be accepted, at least grudgingly, and the issue will disappear from the radar screen. We'll see.
But wouldn't it be nice if people - hunters, non-hunters and anti-hunters - would show comparable interest in controlling urban sprawl and protecting our lakes and rivers? These are things that have far more impact on our environment and wildlife than a dove season ever will. And on our right to hunt and fish, too.
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A GREAT NON-EVENT at the fish and wildlife rules hearings was the relative scarcity of anti-hunters. The word was that the animal rights folks might show up in force, elect their sympathizers to the Conservation Congress, and use that as a fulcrum to ban hunting.
But around the state the attendees, extremely numerous compared with past years, were mostly hunters and fishermen. No additional anti-hunters were elected to the Conservation Congress that I know of.
The anti-hunter issue (coupled with the mourning dove question) brought out the biggest turnout ever. Sparse attendance in other years made it hard to argue that the votes represented the wishes of the public, or even of a representative segment thereof. Of course, you can still argue that it wasn't representative, since the majority of those there were hunters and fishermen, and most people are neither. But anyone could have come if he or she had wanted to.
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ANCIENT OUTDOOR HISTORY:
The open season on game birds is from Sept. 1 to Dec. 1. Deer may be hunted only from Oct. 1 to Nov. 10. Fishing with nets and explosives is prohibited. (Stevens Point Journal, May 7, 1887)