MANITOULIN—While the Ontario Federation of Agriculture (OFA) has voted in favour of a motion passed by the Manitoulin-Sudbury West OFA to lobby the Canadian Wildlife Service (CWS) to allow a managed hunt of sandhill cranes, don’t expect this to be in place in the very near future. However, with sandhill cranes being a game bird and increasing in population, and already being harvested in other provinces in Canada and US, it appears that there is a good chance a hunting season will take place on Manitoulin Island at some point, says a representative of Long Point Waterfowl.
“Sandhill cranes are a game bird and their population is increasing, so I’m sure there will be a season in the future at some point (for Manitoulin and area),” Scott Petrie told the Recorder after a meeting of the Ontario Waterfowl Advisory Committee (OWAC) last week. “They are already harvested in the States and many provinces in Canada so it wouldn’t be a case of precedent being set by having a season on Manitoulin and Lake Huron.”
However, Mr. Petrie told the Recorder, “We (OWAC) had our annual meeting and based on the discussions there it will be a while before there is a sandhill crane hunt season; this is a bird that came back from almost total extinction. And before anything is done the CWS needs to do a population liability assessment first,” he said, noting a harvest probably wouldn’t take place for at least another couple of years.
“The CWS will make the ultimate decision on whether a season on sandhill cranes will take place,” said Mr. Petrie. “They’ve been great in giving us increased duck and dove seasons. If the CWS was not proactive or was anti-hunting we wouldn’t have got those seasons.”
As has been reported previously in the Recorder and in the November-December, 2014 edition of Ontario Out of Doors (OOD) Magazine, farmers on Manitoulin Island and Lake Huron’s North Shore have rallied for a sandhill crane season in those areas.
The issue was discussed at the Manitoulin/North Shore OFA at its annual district meeting October 3. Members indicated that along with damaging mature crops, cranes have been seen picking corn seedlings out of the ground during their northward spring migration.
Cull permits have been issued in the past, but Neil Tarlton, member services representative for the Manitoulin Sudbury West OFA, told OOD farmers are frustrated, since the process takes too long and by the time a permit is issued the birds have moved on.
Mr. Tarlton told the Recorder after the OFA held its general convention earlier this week, “OFA members voted 90 percent in favour of a managed hunt of sandhill cranes.”
The OFA passed the resolution, which had been forwarded by the MNSOFA to the Sudbury-West group. The resolution states, “whereas sandhill cranes cause damage to both recently planted crops and to pre-harvest crops, and whereas the sandhill crane population has expanded greatly, there numbers not being under any threat; and whereas the time frame to obtain harassment permits is too long to allow farmers to alleviate the damage issues in a timely manner. Therefore be it resolved that the Ontario Federation of Agriculture lobby the Canadian Wildlife Service to allow a managed hunt of sandhill cranes.”
Studies carried out on Manitoulin Island show that the populations during the breeding season in early July is about 200-300. However, as a staging site in the fall, between 12,000-15,000 sandhill cranes will visit Manitoulin and neighbouring areas during the migratory season.
A two day count in 2009 found more than 9,000 cranes between Sault Ste. Marie and Espanola along Huron’s north shore, including Manitoulin Island.
Mr. Petrie said that numbers will continue to increase in Ontario if left unchecked. As for a hunt, he told the Recorder there just hasn’t been a big push for it, until now.
