The offer was more than I could refuse. Sit on the bank of the Wisconsin River on pioneering environmentalist Aldo Leopold’s former farmstead, watching thousands of sandhill cranes with an international expert on the big birds.
The evening, and the conversation, didn’t go as expected.
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| Stan Temple Aldo Leopold Foundation photo |
The program was offered by the Aldo Leopold Foundation, located between Portage and Baraboo. The expert is Stan Temple, a retired University of Wisconsin professor of wildlife ecology. He has helped in the recovery of many bird species, including the sandhill, peregrine falcon and California condor.
It was a great opportunity to talk with a man who held the same seat the great Leopold had 80 years earlier. I asked him how cool that was. Temple said it was so intimidating that he didn’t mention it much when he had the job. Now that he has retired, he uses it for instant woods-cred.
He also rubbed elbows with “Silent Spring” author Rachel Carson as a boy working at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. He remembered being thrilled by getting a set of birding binoculars that were the same model Carson used.
Unfortunately, there was little to interrupt the conversation, especially cranes. It was Sandy’s fault. Winds from the hurricane made the bend in the river where the observation blind is located inhospitable for cranes. Complicating things further, an imposing adult bald eagle was perched above the cranes’ usual evening hangout. First time I ever regretted seeing an eagle.
The conversation turned to the likelihood that people crouched in blinds waiting for cranes soon will be carrying firearms. That’s something the Wisconsin Conservation Congress has pushed for.
Earlier, Temple had told us that, while sandhill cranes were a rare sight in Leopold’s day, the population of just the subspecies we have here — the greater sandhill — is estimated at nearly 100,000 nationally. Wisconsin’s population is estimated to be 20,000.
“They have pretty much saturated the breeding habitat,” Temple said of the Wisconsin flock.
Crop damage has become a complaint. Cranes will happily eat a row of new corn sprouts, though a coating is available to make corn seeds distasteful to cranes.
The next question is obvious. Does that mean the science justifies a crane hunt? With apologies to my many friends who love cranes, Temple’s answer is — in a limited way — yes.
“Hunting is just a matter of time,” he said.
Forgive him if he’s hesitant about seeming to agree with the Conservation Congress. When that group adopted his study on bird predation by feral cats to justify a proposal to allow hunters to shoot cats, Temple received death threats, even though he was not involved in the proposal.
Hunting pressure took sandhills to near extinction in Wisconsin. The lack of hunting pressure allowed them to come back — that and modern farming techniques that opened up expansive fields and leave plenty of waste grain behind.
Temple explained that because cranes don’t mature until about age 4 and have limited offspring — usually two — it took decades to recover. That’s a note of caution for a future hunt.
I’ve always argued against hunting wolves and sandhills by saying we should follow the science. So do I have no choice but to endorse a hunt?
Temple had an important caveat. The hunt should be small and it needs to be managed by the wildlife professionals, unlike the wolf hunt for which the Legislature dictated specific rules based more on political popularity than biological principles.
I don’t think we can meet that test. Leave it to the legislators and we may see people hunting cranes with leg-hold traps.
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