Over a period of years prior to 1960 sentiment favoring an open 
season on sandhill cranes had increased. This resulted from recurring 
depredations of cranes on small grain crops, both in Canada and the 
United States, as well as the increasing feeling among sportsmen and 
game management people that certain populations of this migratory game 
bird could withstand harvest under proper management. This growing con- 
viction culminated in formal requests by the Central Flyway Council and 
the National Waterfowl Flyway Council during each of several years prior 
to 1960 for a limited open season on sandhill cranes. Final decision 
to permit hunting of any sandhills was deferred for several years until 
more information could be obtained on the distribution and abundance of 
the various crane populations. 
By 1960 the Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife and the State of 
New Mexico Department of Game and Fish, through their research activities, 
had amassed sufficient evidence to show that neither the whooping crane 
nor the greater sandhill crane would be endangered by a hunting season 
limited to certain counties of eastern New Mexico and western Texas 
where the greatest concentrations of the lesser sandhill crane occurred. 
The studies of distribution of the greater and lesser sandhill cranes 
were based on extensive collecting and trapping of cranes carried out 
by the Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife (Aldrich and Burleigh 
ms. 1958) and the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish (Huey ms. 1960) 
in New Mexico and Texas during the period 1957 to 1960. The conclusions 
were that very few, if any, greater sandhill cranes occur in the area 
proposed for hunting in the eastern counties of New Mexico and western 
counties of Texas. To prevent any danger to the near-extinct whooping 
crane, data obtained from studies of the migration of this species by 
Allen (1952) were used in recommending areas and dates for an open 
season on sandhill crane. 
Meanwhile there was growing concern over sandhill crane depreda- 
tions on wheat in North Dakota, discussed in reports by Smith and 
Boeker (ms. 1958) and Timmerman (ms. 1958) and in the province of 
Saskatchewan documented by Munro (1950). It became so acute in the 
latter area in 1959 that provincial officials, with the concurrence 
of the Canadian Wildlife Service, decided to allow hunters to assist 
farmers in protecting their crops by shooting sandhill cranes without 
special permit in specific areas where these birds were causing damage. 
Recognizing the potential danger of this procedure to whooping cranes 
which migrate through this section of Saskatchewan, the provincial and 
Canadian Wildlife Service officials in 1960 proposed an open season on 
lesser sandhill cranes in their major wintering areas in the United 
States. This plan was designed to relieve the situation in Saskatchewan, 
but in a way that the whooping crane would not be endangered. . 
