# Sandhill crane - Victory dance



## Hamilton Reef (Jan 20, 2000)

VICTORY DANCE

http://www.mlive.com/news/bctimes/index.ssf?/base/news-7/114545981990210.xml&coll=4

Wednesday, April 19, 2006 By JERRY NUNN TIMES WRITER
894-9647 [email protected].

The beautiful dance of the sandhill crane, once a rare sight, may be coming soon to the wild near you. 

In 1931, habitat depletion and hunting pressure drove the number of nesting cranes in Michigan to an estimated low of 17 nesting pairs. 

Today the National Audubon Society estimates there are 8,000 of the huge-winged birds in the state - so many that some are calling for a hunting season on cranes.

At Calhoun County's Baker Sanctuary, located north of Battle Creek, officials with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife counted a record 6,754 sandhill cranes during a four-hour period last November. 

''It's one of the great environmental success stories of this state and the nation,'' said Mike Boyce, sanctuary manager. ''That we have been able to bring these magnificent birds back from the very brink of extinction is a true story of success.'' 

The cranes are renowned for their fanciful dance, which Boyce said is a ''pair bonding behavior,'' as likely to be practiced by immature cranes as by breeding pairs. 

Pairs of 4-foot birds leap head-high into the air, gracefully flapping their wings and tilting their beaks skyward, and they fill the air with guttural, primitive cries. 

''Cranes are well known to be the best dancers of the animal world,'' he said. ''A lot of Native American dances are patterned after the elaborate displays of cranes.'' 

That sight is becoming more commonplace in mid-Michigan and points north. 

''I think they are just expanding their range and expanding their numbers,'' said Larry Abraham, president of Saginaw Valley Audubon Society and a volunteer at Shiawassee National Wildlife Refuge, where up to three-dozen birds stop by each spring, headed for points further north.

But the birds no longer are only passing through. 

''We had our first successful pair in 2004, the first recorded in Shiawassee County,'' Abraham said. ''I would think they will continue to increase and become even more common. At least I hope so.'' 

Ken Bialobrezeski, an Alger dairy farmer, said a nested pair of sandhill cranes return each year, arriving ''about the same time as the Canadian geese.

''They've been coming here for about five years, I guess,'' Bialobrezeski said. 

Typical of the species, the sandhills build their nest in a remote corner of the farm. The farmer said he is not sure if the pair find success in raising young, but said it appears so, by anecdotal evidence. 

''By fall we're seeing four or five,'' Bialobrezeski said. 

Success story, 

or nuisance? 

As the research director of the Kalamazoo Nature Center, Ray Adams spends days at a time monitoring bird populations during frequent field surveys. 

Their population growth ''has been pretty exciting to watch. When I started here in the 1970s, I was excited when I saw one sandhill on my surveys. They were that rare,'' Adams said.

Adams said he now numbers sightings in the hundreds; during one late-March survey, he encountered a flock that numbered nearly 700 birds. 

''What you are seeing in your area is the same kind of expansion we experienced in the Kalamazoo and Jackson areas in the 1970s and 1980s. It has just been more gradual in your part of the state,'' Adams said. 

Sandhills migrate to the Gulf Coast, remaining in family units until the following spring, when juveniles are driven off. The young birds wander in loose-knit flocks until establishing their own territories and taking mates when they reach 3 years old.

In some areas, the birds have become a nuisance. 

''They are like the unsupervised juveniles of any species,'' said Boyce. ''They'll hang together. They'll go down to the farmers' fields and pull the newly sprouted corn.'' 

Efforts to thwart the localized, though often severe, destruction caused by the birds has met with mixed success, according to Pete Butchko, Michigan director for the U.S. Department of Agriculture wildlife service program. 

Mylar ribbons designed to scare the birds and chemical deterrents that make the seed unpalatable are used in some instances. So are permits allowing farmers to shoot the birds. 

''Permits are issued as part of a larger harassment program,'' Butchko said, most often in conjunction with noise-making devices. 

On the hunt 

Some groups want to see a hunting season on sandhill cranes, particularly in areas of western and southern Michigan, where their numbers are higher.

George Cullers, a district director of the Michigan United Conservation Clubs, has six to eight nested pair of sandhills on his 140-acre, Berry County farm. 

He said he hears plenty of opinions about the big birds, and plans to introduce a resolution to the MUCC before its June convention. 

''The numbers are high enough and I run into enough farmers that want to see a hunt,'' said Cullers, noting some western states allow hunting now.

''What the resolution will ask is to have some negotiation between the MUCC, the (Department of Natural Resources) and the federal agency that is in charge, to see if a hunt is something we want to look at.'' 

Cullers said any decision by the MUCC to support a resolution would be based on sound science. 

MUCC policy specialist Erin McDonough agreed, saying that club committees and members would debate the issue, examine the science and listen to agency findings before supporting a hunting season. 

''The DNR is still examining the issue and studying the population,'' McDonough said. ''We would wait and see what comes of that to see if a harvest was something we wanted to support.''


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## Hamilton Reef (Jan 20, 2000)

Sandhill cranes http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=587687


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