Betsy Bloom/Daily News Photo

A proposal has been raised to add mourning doves and sandhill cranes to the list of game birds that can be legally hunted in Michigan. The Michigan United Conservation Clubs endorsed the move in June.

Little argument can be made that a dove hunt would significantly dent their population, given they can produce multiple broods in a breeding season if the conditions are right. Plus, doves make for a difficult, dodging aerial target to hit. Public opinion against a hunt — Michigan voters opposed one in 2006 — remains more based on sentiment than any true threat to the species.

Cranes, however, have some special considerations that need to be weighed when deciding whether they can withstand hunting pressure.

It’s true 15 states already have a crane hunting season. But the majority of those are in the Great Plains and western states that have vast flocks of lesser sandhill cranes, migrating from the southwest to breeding grounds in Canada, then south again in the fall. That population numbers an estimated 500,000 to 600,000, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

The cranes in Wisconsin and Michigan are greater sandhill cranes, second in size only to the whooping crane in North America. Like the whooping crane, habitat loss and hunting almost drove the greater sandhills to extinction, with Wisconsin having only an estimated 25 pairs in the 1930s. Illinois, Ohio, Indiana and Iowa all saw the cranes vanish as a breeding bird.

Over the decades, they have made a remarkable comeback, with an estimated 60,000 to 70,000 in the Eastern population, most spread among the Great Lakes states.

The numbers of sandhill cranes in the Upper Peninsula certainly has grown in recent decades, to the point where these tall birds with their rattling cries have become a common sight as they forage through fields or along roadsides.

In some areas, unfortunately, the cranes have begun doing damage to croplands, picking young corn plants and potatoes, according to the Wisconsin Society of Ornithology, which posted a web page about the prospects of a crane hunt in Wisconsin. That state’s Conservation Congress voted in April, 2,349 to 2,049, in favor of a crane hunt.

In Michigan, mostly downstate, permits already are available for lethal control against crop damage. In the state, 1,216 sandhill cranes were legally killed in 2013 and 1,101 in 2014; from 2006 to 2015, a total of 5,832 were taken, according to the FWS.

The problem with a full-scale hunt is cranes reproduce very slowly compared with other game birds. They usually don’t start breeding until 4 to 6 years of age, and then will produce only one to two chicks, called colts, a year. Of those, only 1 in 10 nesting pairs will manage to have that chick survive to migrate, according to studies done in Wisconsin.

What the cranes have going for them is a long life span that allows for several decades of potential nesting attempts — unless they fall prey to eagles, coyotes, bobcats and, under this proposal, hunters.

Kentucky alone allows hunting of the Eastern population; the Fond du Lac tribe of Minnesota and tribal hunting territories in northern Wisconsin permit tribal members only to take cranes as well.

Both Michigan and Wisconsin need to proceed carefully to ensure any hunt, if it comes, has strong controls that will allow the species to keep its numbers strong. And a reliable way to assess the effects of hunting on the crane population.

It would be a shame to see this iconic bird, having recovered from a brush with extinction, disappear from the North Woods marshes and fields once again.