The return of the sandhill crane to Wisconsin is a conservation success, but now the state needs to manage the population and the crop damage the birds can cause. (Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources)

A Wisconsin Assembly committee held a public hearing Tuesday on a bill that would require the state to hold an annual hunt of sandhill cranes. 

The sandhill crane was once nearly extinct and its recovery is seen as a conservation success story. Similar to the return of the wolf, the growth of the sandhill crane population has caused a long running political debate in Wisconsin. For years, Republicans in the Legislature have been pushing for a sandhill crane hunt — arguing the opening of recreational opportunities would benefit the state’s hunting industry and advocating for eating the birds’ meat. 

The proposal this session stems from a legislative study committee commissioned last summer which examined how to mitigate damage caused by the birds to the state’s farm fields and the possibility of holding a hunt. Estimates say that each year the birds cause almost $2 million in crop damage, mostly to corn seeds that are eaten before they can sprout. 

In the initial version of the bill proposed by the study committee, a number of provisions were included that would have directly addressed the crop damage. If a sandhill crane hunt is authorized, that would allow farmers to access money through an existing Department of Natural Resources damage abatement program, but otherwise all the farm-specific provisions have been removed from the version of the bill now being considered by the Assembly. 

If a bird is frequently damaging a farmer’s crops, a depredation permit is obtainable from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, however federal law requires that the bird’s carcass not be consumed. 

Rep. Paul Tittl (R-Manitowoc), the bill’s author, said the bill is a “well thought out proposal to relieve farmers and promote new opportunities for hunters.” 

But Democrats on the committee and critics of the bill questioned why the specific farmer assistance programs were cut out, how a hunt would affect the crane population and how much establishing a hunt would cost the DNR. 

Rep. Vincent Miresse (D-Stevens Point) noted that the Republicans were simultaneously arguing that holding a hunt wouldn’t significantly impact the state’s crane population and that holding a hunt would help mitigate the crop damage caused by the birds. 

“If it’s not going to impact the population very much, then how do we protect farmers’ investment in seed and corn sprouts and potatoes and cranberries, if we’re not going to actually impact the population to the benefit of the farmer,” Miresse said. 

Taylor Finger, the DNR’s game bird specialist, said in his testimony that opening the existing crop damage abatement program up to sandhill crane damage without adding additional funds to the program would result in “worse outcomes for farmers seeking assistance.” 

Republicans on the committee largely questioned the testimony of sandhill crane researchers. Anne Lacy, director of eastern flyway programs at the Baraboo-based International Crane Foundation, said she is concerned about holding a hunt in Wisconsin because it is one of the few places on the continent where sandhill cranes breed. 

“I don’t think there is a [population] number that justifies a hunt,” Lacy said. “There are many states that hunt sandhill cranes, and they do it successfully. They’ve been managed for years, including this population. But Wisconsin is a breeding state, so that puts a different spin on a hunting season … So it’s not so much a number. It is how a hunt affects this bird because of its ecology.”

In an extended back and forth in which he raised his voice, Rep. Shae Sortwell (R-Two Rivers) pushed Lacy to say she is supportive of sandhill crane hunts elsewhere. 

“All right, so I catch you dodging me, so therefore you do not personally support a hunt in any other state,” Sortwell said.

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Oak Bluff Natural Area in Door County, which was protected by the Door County Land Trust using Knowles-Nelson Stewardship funds in 2023. (Photo by Kay McKinley)

At a Wisconsin Assembly committee meeting in November to consider a proposal to extend the widely popular Knowles-Nelson Stewardship Grant program, Rep. Rob Swearingen (R-Rhinelander) complained that too much land in his district has been conserved through the program.

That sentiment has become increasingly common among a subset of Republicans in the Wisconsin Legislature, most of them representing the far northern reaches of the state. The complaint they often make is that Knowles-Nelson has taken too much land off local property tax rolls, depriving already struggling local governments of important revenue. 

These complaints also go hand-in-hand with laments that the Wisconsin Supreme Court undermined the Legislature’s authority to conduct oversight of the grant program by ruling the Republican-controlled Joint Committee on Finance was unconstitutionally blocking stewardship grant projects proposed by the Department of Natural Resources. These Republicans say that their districts have borne the burden of Wisconsin’s land conservation goals for too long and some of that work should shift to southern parts of the state.

Because of this group’s objections in the Republican legislative caucus, the stewardship program is facing its demise next year.

Popular program hits roadblocks 

The Knowles-Nelson program was started in 1989 to fund land conservation in the state. Grants from the program to local governments and non-profits help cover some of the costs for purchasing and conserving land that can be used for recreation, preserving animal habitats and supporting local industries such as forestry. Polls have shown an overwhelming majority of Wisconsinites support the program. 

Despite that support, it is set to expire next summer and, so far, legislative efforts to extend the program have failed. 

In his initial 2025-27 state budget proposal, Gov. Tony Evers asked to extend the program for ten years with $100 million in annual funding. Republicans stripped that provision from the budget immediately. 

Rep. Tony Kurtz (R-Wonewoc) and Sen. Patrick Testin (R-Stevens Point) have authored a bill that would extend the program for four years at $28 million per year. The bill also includes a provision that would require the full Legislature to approve any land purchases that cost more than $1 million — a proposal that critics say would be far too slow for the speed at which real estate transactions need to move. 

A separate proposal from Sen. Jodi Habush Sinykin (D-Whitefish Bay) would re-authorize the program for six years at $72 million per year and create an independent board made up of members appointed by the Legislature to approve large land purchases through the program.

Separately, Rep. Shae Sortwell (R-Two Rivers) has introduced a proposed constitutional amendment that would require the full Legislature to approve any state spending on land conservation.

Data contradicts lawmakers’ complaints 

The complaints that Knowles-Nelson has conserved too much Northwoods land may prove fatal to the program in a Legislature that has been unable to find common ground on environmental issues. 

But an analysis of public lands data shows that the Knowles-Nelson program plays a comparatively small role in Wisconsin’s conserved land portfolio. Despite the claims of critics, the program’s land purchases have been made in all corners of the state. 

knowles nelson by assembly district

“Knowles-Nelson becomes like sort of the straw man argument,” says Charles Carlin, director of strategic initiatives at the land conservation non-profit Gathering Waters. “If legislators stood up and said, ‘I don’t think that we should have public land in the way that we do, we should reduce our public land portfolio,’ that would be a terribly unpopular position.”

The program has widespread support, he says.

“Public lands are the prized heritage of Americans, right?” Carlin says. “It’s one of the only things that we just largely agree on as a country, is that we are really proud of our public lands. And this is part of our national identity, and I think it’s certainly part of our Wisconsin identity.” 

Swearingen’s 34th district, which covers north central Wisconsin from Rhinelander up to the Michigan border, has more land conserved by the DNR than any other district in the state — almost 335,000 acres, nearly 24% of the district. That includes land set aside for state parks, natural areas, forests and similar uses. 

But only 4.7% of the district is conserved through Knowles-Nelson. Another 4.6% of his district is conserved by the federal government, and 8.6% is conserved county forest land. 

Despite the claims that Knowles-Nelson has devoured valuable land across the state, no Assembly district has had more than 5.1% of its land conserved through the program, data shows. The average amount of Knowles-Nelson conserved land across all 99 Assembly districts is 1.13%. 

Many small purchases

Ron Eckstein, a board member of Wisconsin Green Fire, says Knowles-Nelson is best equipped to help the state purchase smaller tracts to connect already conserved land across the southern part of the state. 

“Many state fish and wildlife areas, state parks, and state natural areas across the southern two-thirds of Wisconsin have private land inholdings within their property boundaries,” he said in an email. 

“It is very important to continue to purchase these inholdings so these state properties can meet their intended purpose: fish and wildlife habitat, rare species, game species, public access, recreation and recreational trails,” Eckstein said. “This means continuing the long-term, slow process of purchasing a 20-acre tract here and an 80-acre tract there to complete these state-owned areas and fulfill their public purpose.”

state land by assembly district

Other DNR land and federal land take up hundreds of thousands more acres across the state. 

The 74th District, represented by Rep. Chanz Green and Sen. Romaine Quinn has the most Knowles-Nelson land at 5.1%. Nearly 11% of the district is other DNR land while 14.5% is federal land and 23.8% is county land.

Twenty Assembly districts have more general DNR conserved land than the 74th has Knowles-Nelson land. 

Across the five Assembly districts with the most federal land, 1,596,129 acres have been conserved. Across the five districts with the most Knowles-Nelson land, 413,453 acres have been conserved. 

The data also contradicts Republican claims that the northern parts of the state unfairly get too much land conservation attention. 

The Dane County districts represented by Reps. Mike Bare (D-Verona), Alex Joers (D-Waunakee) and Shelia Stubbs (D-Madison) are all among the 10 districts with the highest percentage of land conserved through Knowles-Nelson. Rep. Karen DeSanto’s Baraboo-area district, Rep. Chuck Wichgers’ suburban Waukesha County district and Rep. Scott Krug’s district south of Stevens Point are also in the top 10.

When divided by dollar amount, Knowles-Nelson is similarly disbursed. Since its inception, $1.2 billion has been given out through the program to all but one of the Assembly districts; the Milwaukee district of Rep. Supreme Moore-Omukunde (D-Milwaukee) is the only district to not receive any money. 

The 36th district, represented by Rep. Jeff Mursau (R-Crivitz), has gotten the most of that money — $102 million, which amounts to 7% of the total Knowles-Nelson purchases over the program’s lifetime. But districts have received an average of $13 million through the program.

federal land by assembly district

“While we’ve done some really cool things with Knowles-Nelson, it’s largely been a drop in the bucket of our sort of overall public lands portfolio,” Carlin says. While some critics complain about the state’s total public land portfolio, he adds,  “Knowles Nelson investments are really targeted and strategic, and cumulatively not actually that big.”

Republicans defend focusing on Knowles-Nelson because they have limited control over the land conserved by the federal and county governments.  Legislators have authority over the program through the biennial budget process and the confirmation of members of the Natural Resources Board, but despite that, have put the stewardship program in the crosshairs. 

In the last several years, Republicans on the Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee began using passive review — an anonymous veto system — to selectively block some Knowles-Nelson projects, to the wide condemnation of members of the public and conservation groups. A 2024 state Supreme Court ruling, in a lawsuit filed by Gov. Tony Evers against the committee’s co-chair, Sen. Howard Marklein, found that the “legislative veto” was unconstitutional. 

“Until the Evers v. Marklein decision by the liberal Wisconsin Supreme Court, there was a good process in place for new stewardship land purchases,” Sen. Mary Felzkowski (R-Tomahawk) told the Wisconsin Examiner in a statement. “Those checks and balances between the executive branch and the Legislature ensured that it was a collective decision, and that the state did not overpay for stewardship land. Unfortunately, since this process was destroyed, the Legislature is forced to put even more scrutiny on the stewardship program.”

County Forest by Assembly District

Carlin says the program has played an important role in helping local governments in more rural parts of the state invest in projects that help the local economy in the long term. Dane County’s recently passed 2026 budget includes $20 million for land conservation, which is not an expense most counties can afford. 

“But if collectively, we choose as a state to say this is an important priority, we’re all going to work on this together, then we can make meaningful investments in rural communities that wouldn’t otherwise be able to do it themselves,” Carlin says. 

“At a time when there is such incredible inequality of wealth and opportunity,” he adds, “what the data tells us is that Knowles-Nelson has been a really good democratizer of investments in conservation and recreation.”

A PFAS advisory sign along Starkweather Creek. (Henry Redman | Wisconsin Examiner)

A Wisconsin Senate committee held a public hearing Thursday on a bipartisan bill that would require the state Department of Natural Resources to notify county and tribal governments when local groundwater contamination is found to exceed state standards. 

Throughout the hearing, the bill’s authors and residents of communities with water quality problems complained of incidents in which significant amounts of time passed before people learned their water was contaminated with harmful chemicals such as nitrates or PFAS. 

“Time really counts, hours, days, weeks, and in our case, even years,” said Lee Donahue, a resident of the town of Campbell on French Island near La Crosse, which has been dealing with PFAS contamination for years. “It’s been heart wrenching to know that my family and my friends and my neighbors have all been impacted by these toxic chemicals. I don’t wish anyone to have contamination in their water. And the sad part is we had no clue that PFAS was pouring from our faucets and that we were drinking that water for years and years and years before any notification was made.”

Initially authored by Rep. Jill Billings (D-La Crosse) and Sen. Jesse James (R-Thorp), more than 60 legislators of both parties have signed onto the bill as co-sponsors, signaling the legislation has enough support to be signed into law during a legislative session in which efforts to find compromise on environmental issues — including efforts to extend the Knowles-Nelson stewardship grant program and to create a method to spend $125 million that has been set aside for more than two years to remediate PFAS contamination — have been stuck in the partisan muck. 

Under the bill, if the DNR finds an exceedance of the state’s groundwater standards the department will have seven days to notify the local county or tribal health department as well as the county land and conservation department. 

For several years, Wisconsin policymakers have been unable to establish a state standard for the acceptable amount of PFAS in the state’s groundwater, hitting roadblocks at the state Natural Resources Board and in the Republican-controlled Legislature. The state does have established standards for the amount of PFAS in the state’s surface water and the drinking water provided by municipal water utilities. 

As the Legislature has tried and failed to pass a bill that would spend the $125 million in the PFAS trust fund, residents of communities affected by PFAS contamination have frequently said the policy change they’d most like to see is the establishment of a groundwater standard. 

The contaminant notification bill does not establish a groundwater standard for PFAS, however it requires the DNR to notify the county government if the groundwater is found to have PFAS levels higher than the existing state standards for PFAS in surface or drinking water. 

About one-third of Wisconsin residents get their water from private drinking wells. While the bill does not establish a groundwater standard and does not provide any assistance if the groundwater they use to shower, brush their teeth, make coffee or mix baby formula is contaminated, proponents said it does make sure residents have the information they need to make decisions about the source of their water. 

“If people have a right to clean water, then they have a right to know when their water is not clean,” said Michael Tiboris, the agriculture and water policy director at the River Alliance of Wisconsin. “And this bill is exactly the kind of action that we appreciate having legislators take a strong position on, giving families knowledge of the threats to their drinking water makes it possible for them to protect themselves.” 

None of the people or groups that testified at the hearing Thursday were in opposition to the bill, but a few industry groups expressed a handful of complaints and said they’d like to see amendments to the bill’s final version. 

The concerns of business groups centered around making sure that any notifications were made after test results have been verified and making sure that the notifications don’t instigate regulatory action from the government that it doesn’t have the authority to undertake. 

“It’s just not appropriate for the government to take any kind of action,” said Adam Jordahl, director of environmental and energy policy at Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce. “I know it’s not a direct regulatory action where we’re expecting an individual or business to do something or comply with something, but nevertheless, the issue of sort of holding people accountable to a regulatory PFAS standard that has not yet actually been promulgated into the administrative code. We find that to be very problematic and kind of a slippery slope going down in terms of holding people accountable or responsible to something that hasn’t gone through the full rulemaking process.”

Scott Suder, the president of the Wisconsin Paper Council, said he’s concerned that prematurely telling people their water is contaminated could create “reputational risks” for nearby businesses. 

“It creates unnecessary legal and reputational risk for industry, potentially because the notice is subject to public inspection and copying under [Wisconsin open records law],” Suder said. “All exceedance notifications would become public records, creating significant disclosure and some reputational risks, so even minor errors or omissions could trigger liabilities, and the visibility of exceedances may lead to public misunderstanding about actual risks. So it is a bit concerning for industry as well.”

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The Bad River in Mellen, south of the Bad River Band's reservation. (Henry Redman | Wisconsin Examiner)

The Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa filed a lawsuit Tuesday against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, challenging the corps’ decision to grant a permit allowing the oil company Enbridge to reroute its Line 5 pipeline around the tribe’s reservation in northern Wisconsin

The lawsuit, filed in the Washington D.C. federal circuit court, is another step in the long legal history of the Enbridge pipeline and the company’s effort to move it from its current route through the tribe’s land. The tribe is asking that the permit approval be vacated. 

In October, the corps approved Enbridge’s permit to reroute the pipeline off the reservation despite significant public opposition. 

The new route moves the pipeline south but it still runs across land on three sides of the reservation and crosses the Bad River upstream of the reservation. The permit was approved as the administration of President Donald Trump has moved to more aggressively support oil and natural gas projects. Earlier in the year, the corps approved a fast-tracked permitting process for Enbridge to construct a tunnel across the Straits of Mackinac so Line 5 can cross from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula to its Lower Peninsula. 

The tribe’s lawsuit alleges that the corps violated the National Environmental Policy Act, Clean Water Act and the Administrative Procedure Act by not properly conducting required environmental reviews or following the proper procedures. 

“For hundreds of years, and to this day, the Band’s ancestors and members have lived, hunted, fished, trapped, gathered, and engaged in traditional activities in the wetlands and waters to be crossed by the Project,” the lawsuit states. “The Project would encircle the Reservation on three sides and damage areas the Band highly values for their ecological and cultural significance. The Corps’ failure to properly review and address the Project’s environmental impacts to wetlands and waterways harms the Band’s interest in maintaining its Reservation homeland and resources in the ceded territory.”

The lawsuit alleges that the corps violated the NEPA by not giving proper consideration to the “environmental effects of construction, maintenance, and operation of the Project,” including how it will harm the health of resources on and near the reservation. 

Under the Clean Water Act, the corps cannot approve permits until the state or tribal government responsible for water quality in the project area certifies the project won’t harm the local water. While the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources did previously approve the state permits for the Line 5 reroute, those permits are currently being challenged in a separate legal process. 

The tribe alleges in the lawsuit that the corps should not have moved forward with its permits until after the state process is complete.  

[The corps] violated the Clean Water Act by issuing the Permit without ensuring that construction and maintenance of the Project would not adversely affect Wisconsin and the Band’s water quality,” the lawsuit states. “This includes issuing a … permit while the required … state water quality certification is not yet final, pending state administrative proceedings; without addressing the inadequacies the Band identified with Wisconsin’s Water Quality Certification; or ensuring compliance with the Band’s water quality standards.” 

The lawsuit also states the permit approval does not address how the project construction will affect the tribe’s “ability to exercise treaty-protected rights to hunt, fish, trap, and gather in ceded territory,” “failed to evaluate the risks and impacts of oil spills along the pipeline route” and “failed to evaluate the risks and impacts of blasting as a construction method.” 

In a statement, tribe chairwoman Elizabeth Arbuckle said the tribe would do whatever it can to protect the health of the Bad River, Lake Superior and surrounding watersheds. 

“For more than a decade, we have had to endure the unlawful trespass of a dangerous oil pipeline on our lands and waters,” Arbuckle said. “The reroute only makes matters worse. Enbridge’s history is full of accidents and oil spills. If that happens here, our Tribe and other communities in the Northwoods will suffer unacceptable consequences. From the Bad River to Lake Superior, our waters are the lifeblood of our Reservation. They have fed and nurtured our Tribe for hundreds of years. We will do everything in our power to protect them.”

Enbridge spokesperson Juli Kellner said in an email that while the Army Corps made an initial permit decision, it has not been signed by the corps or the company and therefore isn’t a final decision that can be challenged in court. She said the company would intervene in the lawsuit to defend the permit approval. 

“Enbridge submitted permit applications to state and federal regulators in early 2020 to build a new segment of pipeline around the Bad River Reservation,” she said. “Enbridge’s permit applications are supported by thorough and extensive environmental analysis and modeling by leading third-party experts confirming project construction impacts will be temporary and isolated, with no adverse effect to water quality or wetlands.”

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State funding of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources has been reduced by more than $100 million per biennium in the past 30 years.

A key factor: smaller debt payments.

DNR received $334.3 million in state general purpose revenue in the 1995-97 state budget and $226.2 million in 2025-27.

That’s a reduction of $108.1 million, or 32%.

Between the two periods, debt service dropped from $234.7 million to $103.4 million. 

A Wisconsin Reddit user posted Nov. 22 about the cuts.

A 2023 report on DNR by the nonpartisan Wisconsin Policy Forum said those savings have been used to fund Medicaid, K-12 schools, prisons and tax cuts. Republicans have controlled all or part of the state budget process for all but one cycle since 1995.

The DNR is charged with protecting and enhancing air, land, water, forests, wildlife, fish and plants and provides outdoor recreational activities.

This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.

Sources

• Wisconsin Legislative Fiscal Bureau: 1995-97 Wisconsin State Budget
• Wisconsin Legislative Fiscal Bureau: 2025-27 Wisconsin State Budget — Natural Resources
• Wisconsin Policy Forum: This Land Is Our Land
• 2025-26 Wisconsin Blue Book: The Executive
• 2025-26 Wisconsin Blue Book: Wisconsin governors since 1848

Has biennial state funding for the Wisconsin DNR dropped by $100 million over 30 years? is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.