Whooping crane killings leave an impact
Story of the 4 whoopers killed in Oklahoma will not end if/when there are arrests
It was 36 degrees, foggy, and probably extra dark in the pre-dawn hours on Nov. 5 at Tom Steed Reservoir. At least, that’s what moon phase charts and the weather readout at timeanddate.com lead me to believe.
The first sliver of a waxing crescent moon would not have offered much illumination at ground level near the Kiowa County lake pre-dawn. Maybe that was the time when someone with a penchant for poaching managed to see four large birds they considered prime targets before legal shooting hours.
Maybe it was early but legal time and the birds were silhouetted.
Maybe the excitement of having four huge birds that close just clouded the judgment of the hunters at that moment.
Maybe they just made a mistake, realized they killed four of the rarest birds in North America, panicked, and ran.
Or then again maybe not.
The hunt is on
For now, wildlife law enforcement officials are not sharing details beyond the date and general location of the killing of four whooping cranes in Oklahoma.
They are not saying if it was morning, evening, or middle of the day. One of the birds was tagged with a GPS tracking device, so odds are the wardens have a really good idea of when and where those birds stopped moving.
They are asking for tips and a potentially large cash reward awaits someone who comes up with key evidence—like maybe a photo they couldn’t resist texting to a few friends.
Whoever it was, the poacher, or poachers, made an impactful black mark in the book for Oklahoma by killing the first documented whooping cranes shot here since they were listed as an endangered species in 1967. To boot, they did it while shooting the most ever documented in one incident in the U.S. or Canada.
Lt. Col. Wade Farrer, assistant chief of the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation Enforcement Division, said he is confident they will find out who shot the birds. Large fines will be levied. It could even involve some jail time.
What is the fallout?
But this could have a broader impact on hunting. Most importantly, this is another illegal shooting that will have an impact on the crane population, and that is a shame.
As for hunting, new regulations could result.
For the uninitiated, this is not an easily made hunting mistake. The idea that this was an “accident” involving whooping cranes in an area open to sandhill crane hunting is pretty thin. I laid out just about the only plausible scenario I could imagine.
The International Crane Foundation looked into documented killings and found out most shootings were not hunting errors but poaching.
An adult whooping crane is a huge bird. A sandhill crane is big, too, about the size of a great blue heron, which stands 3 to 4 feet tall and has a wingspan of 5 to 6 feet. But whoopers are the tallest birds in North America at 5 feet tall. Sandhills are gray and whooping cranes are snowy white with black tips at either end of a 7- to 8-foot wingspan.
First-year whoopers are smaller and have cinnamon-colored feathers among the white feathers, but let me be clear; within shotgun range, the ID is not hard.
How could this impact hunting? When it comes to endangered species the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has absolutely no sense of leniency—nor should it.
Currently, the Wildlife Department will shut down a public hunting area when whooping cranes are present out of an abundance of caution.
Another shooting or three like this one and it’s easy to imagine the USFWS deciding all Oklahoma crane hunting should be closed until the endangered species complete their migration into Texas.
Of mortality and education
Whooping cranes in the migratory Wood-Buffalo-Aransas flock that migrates through Oklahoma have increased from a low of 16 in 1941 to 504. Scientists are hopeful that the numbers will grow. That means it could become more and more likely for hunters to see them. Education efforts will be important—out of an abundance of caution.
The Fish and Wildlife Service has floated the idea of downgrading whooping crane status from endangered to threatened, but it’s in early discussion phases and seems unlikely. The population picture might not be so rosy as it seems.
Whooping cranes are long-lived at 20 to 25 years, but they don’t mate until they are 7 years old, and the chicks and fledglings suffer high mortality on nesting grounds and especially on their 2,500-mile migrations, according to Elizabeth Smith, North America program director for the International Crane Foundation.
“Half the population is non-breeding sub-adults, so now you’re talking about an impact to 250 birds and the potential for 125 pairs at most,” she said. “We don’t know the ages yet of those birds (killed in Oklahoma) but if they were breeding age we lost important potential.”