Spring Conservation Hearings Include Votes On Crane Hunting, CAFOs

Wisconsin’s annual spring conservation hearings will take place Monday night in every county in the state. Attendees will have a chance to weigh in on 88 policy questions, including one that would be a preliminary step toward hunting sandhill cranes.

Similar questions have been on the Wisconsin Conservation Congress spring ballot before. Some farmers and hunters say sandhill cranes damage crops and point to 17 other states that currently have sandhill hunting seasons.

Supporters are again asking to give the state Legislature the authority to begin the process of a sandhill hunt. But the question is raising concerns for the International Crane Foundation, near Baraboo.

The foundation’s Anne Lacy said she’d want to make sure hunters are clued in about endangered whooping cranes.

”That they know, first off, that there are whooping cranes in the state, what they look like as compared to sandhills, how to discern them in the field and things like that, ” Lacy said.

She emphasized the importance of an accurate count of sandhills, and choosing a proper time of the year for a hunt. She also said there are chemicals that deter sandhills from eating crops, potentially lessening any need for a hunt.

The annual conservation hearings also have several questions dealing with citizen concerns about water pollution. One question would let the Department of Natural Resources suspend any permit application for large farms known as concentrated animal feeding operations, commenly called CAFOs, when “pollution matters need to be studied by (Native American) tribes, local governments or other governmental entities.”

The question comes from Denise Ciebien, of Ashland, who lives several miles from a hog CAFO proposed for Bayfield County.

“It gives the DNR reason to pause an application process if they have that authority and there’s some issues that need to be studied,” Ciebien said.

She said many Wisconsin elected officials are listening to the agriculture industry, instead of citizens.

Other ballot questions would put a moratorium on new frac sand mines and make it harder to open an iron ore mine.