Friday the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Commission voted to postpone further consideration of a hunting season for sandhill cranes for at least two years. Click HERE for details. To share you opinion of the decision, send an E-MAIL HERE. Include your name and hometown.
I would like to see TOS (Tennessee Ornithological Society) step up and put their money where their mouth is!
The dollars raised by hunters license fees supports the Hiwassee Refuge. Birders in general are always saying they would donate. As a hunter in the area I would like to see TOS and its allies supply the funding that it takes to run the refuge for a year. I'm not talking just the seed for corn but the man-hours it takes to prepare the refuge, the fuel cost involved and the general up keep.
Birders didn't want a crane season. The TWRC listened to a loud few over sound biology in a state that just passed the right to hunt and fish with a huge majority.
I challenge TOS and their allies to put the money up, support the refuge for one full year without hunters help.
Chris Sanders
Hixson
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I also affirm the fact that hunters are the ones who finace the refuge system. From my understanding the proposed season would not affect the refuge, the cranes are not going to disappear just because they would be hunted. As long as the food source that hunters supply remains the cranes can still be veiwed at the refuge.
Andy Oliveira
Chattanooga
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TWRA Commissioners voted to delay the decision on Sandhill Crane hunting for two years, does this mean in two years we must do this again ? If so here's some questions that should be answered, how much money is needed per year to operate the Hiwassee Refuge? How much does it cost to feed a Sandhill Crane for the 3 months they are at the refuge? Is the Hiwassee Refuge funded only with hunter dollars that are spent on hunting license? Hunters are allowed to hunt inside the refuge during managed hunts, will birders and photographers ever be allowed to view and photograph wildlife inside the refuge, if they paid a fee to do so, like the hunters do?
This issue should not turn into something between the hunters and wildlife observers, we have many people that love to observe wildlife and also hunt wildlife. Times have changed in the past 10 years, the hunters no longer have a large amount of public land available to them to hunt, so hunting is moving to private hunting clubs on private land for a fee and the number of hunters declines each year. The introduction of the digital camera has turned many birders into photographers, the computer allows you to process and print and store photos with little cost, so birders and wildlife watchers are increasing each year, they outnumber hunters 6 to 1 and also outspend hunters as reported by the US Fish & Wildlife Service who take a survey every 5 years.
Birds and wildlife are easy to find at public parks, rivers ,lakes and back yards that are off limits to hunting, so the wildlife is protected and feed by large numbers of bird feeders. Birders and wildlife watchers have little trouble finding wildlife to view and photograph, but the Sandhill Cranes are only here about 3 months in the winter. They are here because TWRA has provided food and protection at Hiwassee Refuge for 50 years, now if suddenly the Cranes are not feed and are not provided a safe place to roost, who explains this to the Sandhills that expect food and protection at Hiwassee.
If the Sandhill season is opened and no hunts are allowed inside the refuge, then all hunting will be on private posted land around the refuge because that is where the Sandhills will be, looking for food and protection. If it's not there they will move to private land looking for it and a little corn on scrub land will easly draw them. Should TWRA be in the business of providing game for a private hunting club ? Will private hunting clubs generate enough license sales to support the Hiwassee Refuge ?
We believe it's time for TWRA to set down with Hunters ,Birders and Wildlife Watchers and discuss how we can all cooperate together to turn the Hiwassee Refuge and the annual Sandhill Crane Festival into the number one tourist attraction in Tennessee in the winter. TWRA needs money to operate, budget cuts have hurt, there's a new group that enjoys wildlife watching, there's ways to generate some new money such as, adopt a Crane, allow vehicle with Watchable Wildlife plates into designated areas for wildlife watching from your auto, wildlife watching tours inside the refuge during Crane season. Birders and Wildlife Watchers outnumber and outspend hunters and anglers combined, we just need to be included in the TWRA picture to help solve this problem. We are not against hunting ,except when it come to hunting Sandhills at Hiwassee ,that have been trained for 50 years to show up each winter.
Harold Sharp
Hixson,TN
Riverwalk Bird Club
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First, the sandhills are here LONGER than 3 months. They have been here 3 months already, and there is no sign of leaving. As a matter of fact, I have seen them stay past the end of March.
Second, nobody is asking TWRA to provide game for a private hunting club but in the same manner, no farmer wants to grow a crop and have a flock of birds destroy it year after year. The cranes are already on private land, and have been for years. What is going to keep them from moving to private land when they want to? Predation permits are available to landowners/farmers who have an animal destroying their crops, but you must leave what you shoot laying in the field. That is so wasteful! A hunting season would provide for hunters to pick up their harvest, and put it to good use. Sandhills can be eaten; I have eaten them in states where there is a hunting season… not bad either.
All I am saying is having a season on sandhills is not going to reduce the numbers dramatically, but it will give private landowners/farmers/hunters a way to help keep our crops and feed that we plant for wildlife that we can hunt from being decimated by something that we cannot.
Fred C. Robinson, II
Dayton, Tenn.
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1- The TWRC only listened to a loud few. By contrast, only a very select number of special interest individuals and not the majority of the states citizens would be served by having a hunting season in Tennessee. Specifically, that number would be 733 hunters. These 733 hunters from across the state are the only ones who would be allowed to hunt Sandhill Cranes in Tennessee had the 2011-12 seasons been approved. Each person would have been randomly selected to participate in a hunt in which they would be allowed to “harvest” three cranes for a grand total of 2199 birds. There is only a small portion of the state where you could legally hunt cranes. Landowners and or farmers would only be allowed to shoot cranes (on their land) if they were one of the 733 selected hunters.
2- Only hunters with a valid hunting license monetarily support the Hiwassee Refuge. By contrast, Ed Carter, the Executive Director of the TWRA stated while attending a meeting devoted to Tennessee for Wilderness Planning in LaFollette, “ a hunting license may be purchased by a hunter and that revenue will be matched by the Federal Government to support the agency.” It seems to me that what Ed said was that federal tax dollars taken from my weekly payroll deductions also support the Hiwassee Refuge! FOR THE RECORD, I do possess a valid hunting/fishing license for Tennessee and have since moving here 19 years ago. My most recent license was purchased at Wal-Mart for a fee of $28.00. I don’t hunt since returning from Viet Nam but I do occasionally fish. I also, from time to time, purchase a Federal Duck Stamp at the Hixson post office.
3- I wish that TOS (Tennessee Ornithological Society) would support the Hiwassee Refuge for a year. Your preaching to the choir, amen brother, I do too! After all, I am a member of TOS and the Riverwalk Bird Club. On a recent on-line check I found that the total operational cost to manage the refuge is in the neighborhood of $300,000.00 annually. Since the refuge is funded by the purchase of licenses and taxes on other hunting/fishing related items it would be almost impossible for TOS to make a donation as funding currently stands. I WOULD LIKE TO SEE THE LAWS CHANGED THAT GOVERN HOW THE AGENCY IS FUNDED.
SO WOULD A LOT OF WILDLIFE WATCHING ENTHUSIASTS. Again, for the record, TOS made a donation of more than $50,000.00 toward the purchase of Yuchi Wildlife Refuge. By contrast, I can ascertain that even a thug in a downtown city in our state who purchases a box of ammunition with intent to murder someone just made a small donation to the Hiwassee Refuge.
4- Crop depredation permits. By contrast, only 9 permits have been issued by the USFWS in the last three years for Tennessee. In 2008 four permits were issued, in 2009 three and in 2010 two. This data suggests that there may be declining interest for crop depredation permits. Each permit costs $100.00 and seems to be good for 25 cranes each which potentially equals 225 birds taken over the last three years. I couldn’t find any supporting data, which would reliably tell how many cranes, were actually harvested by this fashion. Corn, a primary food source for Sandhill Cranes would not still be standing in my grandfather’s field when the cranes arrive in our area in mid-November. I was told by a TWRA officer at this years Sandhill Crane Festival (I have been a volunteer for the past 14 years) that he didn’t think cranes ate winter wheat, I don’t know if they do or not for sure, but the officer stated that the birds did a good job of trampling the grain which, to me, is just as bad either way.
5- TWRA’s web site states that the Hiwassee Refuge is just that, a refuge and will be off limits to crane hunting. If cranes are like other hunted creatures, after a short while many of them will wise up and use the refuge as a refuge. By contrast, will TWRA be prepared to support a larger capacity of much wiser cranes staying on the refuge?
6- On one of the many TN.GOV web sites, one of the sites devoted to frequently asked questions regarding hunting Sandhill Cranes, question #10 was: Does the TWRA expect to gain more revenue by having a crane hunt? The answer was NO. TWRA does not expect to see any increase in revenue from hunting Sandhill Cranes. Hunters would most likely already possess the appropriate license needed. By contrast, my question would have to be…wouldn’t hunters be better served to not have a Sandhill Crane hunt in which valuable time and money would be taken from other wildlife management projects?
7- This is a state in which a recent vote was taken in support of or against the right to hunt and fish. A landslide approved this right. There is no by contrast here. The question was and will always be do you support the right to hunt and fish in this state. Before hand there was no legal right that said you hunters and anglers had that right. The hunting/fishing community voted in support but so did my bird watching buddies and me. We all felt that if this issue were not voted in support of then what other right could “big brother” try and take away at a later date? It never was an issue about hunting/fishing per se but your right to do so!
In summary, the divide in what I think as a bird watcher and what a devoted hunter thinks is not such a great divide. I suppose we will always be on opposite sides of the fence. However, we should be able to sit down together, agree to disagree and move ahead to protect, in different ways, wildlife species we each immensely enjoy on different levels.
Jimmy Wilkerson
Hixson, TN.