Status and Harvests of Sandhill Cranes, 2021

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, working with partners, annually assesses the population status and harvest of four populations of Sandhill cranes: the Mid-continent, Rocky Mountain, Lower Colorado River Valley, and Eastern populations. The annual indices to abundance of the Mid-Continent Population (MCP) of sandhill cranes had been relatively stable from 1982 to the mid-2000s. Some of the annual indices have increased in recent years, and are more variable interannually compared to historic values. The spring 2021 estimate of abundance for sandhill cranes in the Central Platte River Valley (CPRV), Nebraska, corrected for visibility bias, was 782,462 birds. This estimate is 17% below the 2019 estimate. The photocorrected, 3-year average for 2018-21 was 911,357, which is well above the established population-objective range of 350,000-475,000 cranes. All Central Flyway States, except Nebraska, allowed crane hunting in portions of their States during 2020-21. An estimated 27,387 Central Flyway hunters participated in these seasons. This estimate was 114% higher than the number that participated in the previous season for the same states. Hunters harvested 71,733 MCP cranes in the U.S. portion of the Central Flyway during the 2020–21 season, which was a record high. The long-term (1982-2019) trends for the MCP indicate that harvest has been increasing at a higher rate than population growth. The fall 2020 premigration survey for the Rocky Mountain Population (RMP) resulted in a count of 25,636 cranes, 20% higher than the count from 2019. The 3-year average was 22,909 sandhill cranes, which exceeds the established population objective of 17,000-21,000 for the RMP. Hunting seasons during 2020-21 in portions of Arizona, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming resulted in a harvest of 795 RMP cranes, a 28% decrease from the previous year’s harvest. The Lower Colorado River Valley Population (LCRVP) survey results indicated a 100% increase from 2020 (2,941 birds) to 2021 (5,883 birds). The 3-year average is 3,915 LCRVP cranes, which is above the population objective of 2,500 birds. The Eastern Population (EP) sandhill crane fall survey index for 2020 (94,879) was a 9% increase from the previous year, and well above the objective of 30,000 cranes for this population. A total of 1,086 cranes were harvested in Alabama, Kentucky, and Tennessee during the 2020-21 seasons.