In addition to crane festivals and viewings, hunting can honor the bird — and carefully manage flocks while funding more conservation.

The sandhill crane descending on the Wisconsin countryside is a beautiful thing.

Its gray wings are long and graceful, and it doesn’t swoop — it floats in, like a cloud slipping from the sky. Its forehead is a proud red. It often travels in pairs, because it tends to prefer one mate for life. And it is prone to dance, bowing and leaping in a ritual that it has honed for eons as one of Earth’s oldest animals.

The problem is in between, it eats the hell out of your local farmer’s crops.

That’s the rub that has made such a striking bird the subject of fierce political debate as Wisconsin considers a sandhill crane season this year. As a farm boy and a conservationist, I’m here to tell you the reality: If we want to save the sandhill crane, it’s time to organize a responsible hunt. At the root of this argument is the idea that hunting is conservation — one I know not everyone who loves the sandhill crane supports. But for the sake of our gray feathered friend, I hope you’ll hear me out and reserve hate mail for the end.

Regulated hunting and conservation have protected endangered wildlife

Good hunters know that to continue to enjoy their way of life, a hunt must have boundaries so that our natural resources of woods, water, and game can persist. It’s the reason our country did away with unregulated hunting in favor of seasons and bag limits. It’s the reason hunters fund so much conservation, not only through government license fees, but also through voluntary organizations like Ducks Unlimited that have literally restored or conserved millions of acres of natural habitat, and raised billions of dollars. And it’s the path for transforming a once protected bird into a sustainable success story.

Opinion: Don’t stuff sandhill crane hunt down throat of Wisconsin. It will only divide us.

Almost wiped out in the 1800s by unregulated hunting and habitat loss, the sandhill crane has since surged to more than 1 million, with experts of all stripes acknowledging stable populations in Wisconsin and numerous other states. Reported crop damage in Wisconsin, meanwhile, has reached more than $2 million annually, mainly corn and wheat.

Now, the crane is at a crossroads. It can go the way of the sustainable success story, like the whitetail deer, the wild turkey and the duck, all persisting in Wisconsin as a beloved animal that nature-lovers and hunters alike are able to appreciate in abundance. Or, it can go the way of the invasive presence like the coyote in Wisconsin, the wild boar in many parts of the country, and other animals facing open season — without limits — to thin them out.

Comparing the sandhill crane to a mangy coyote is where some may get hot, if they’re not already, given the crane’s history and beauty. Yes, there are reasons particular to coyote and boar that they’re capable of becoming so problematic. But let’s not insult the clever coyote — also a sight to behold slipping from field to woods in the early morning — or the proud boar once held in high regard by western civilization.

Gray wolves show how attitudes about animal’s can change

And we’ve seen how attitudes about animals can change.

Consider the gray wolf, once deeply endangered, now going off and on the endangered species list depending upon which political party is in power. The crane is headed toward similar division. The first time I saw a crane was as a kid in the 1990s, when my mom told me the story of their recovery as two cranes drifted across an evening field, then issued their softly purring trumpet of a call before taking flight. I remember her gasping at their beauty. Today I usually hear them referred to as “those dang things,” if profanity isn’t involved, as they ravage farmers’ fields.

A responsible hunt — with well-timed seasons to protect the hatching of new cranes, bag limits, and fees to fund game law enforcement and even more conservation — can prevent this. Keeping the crane in its hallowed, no-hunt status for too long simply leaves it vulnerable to future generations not giving a damn what happens to it.

This spring, North America’s sandhill cranes will begin their great journey north, from as far south as Mexico. They’ll rest on the Platte River in Nebraska near the sandhills that gave them their name, a sight National Geographic calls “one of the greatest wildlife phenomena in North America.” Then they’ll stop off in the fertile fields of Wisconsin.

You can believe that nature is a delicate ecosystem, with a natural balance that we must protect to preserve such a sight. I certainly do. All I’m saying is, mankind is a part of that balance.

Brian Reisinger is a writer who grew up on a family farm in Sauk County. He contributes columns and videos for the Ideas Lab at the Journal Sentinel, and is the author of “Land Rich, Cash Poor: My Family’s Hope and the Untold History of the Disappearing American Farmer.” Reisinger works in public affairs consulting for Wisconsin-based Platform Communications. He splits his time between Sacramento, Calif. — America’s “farm-to-fork capital,” near his wife’s family — and the family farm in Wisconsin. You can find him on X at @BrianJReisinger