I recently read an article about the Wisconsin Legislature presenting a bill to allow hunting sandhill cranes. The article referred to the majestic birds as "the ribeye of the sky."

Having worked in restaurants in the 1990s when ostrich meat became a popular low fat, low cholesterol alternative to steak, I totally understood what they were getting at – sandhill cranes taste like red meat. This does not, however, mean they should be eaten.

I have no qualms with hunting. If you are killing something to eat, fine, but having a pair of sandhill cranes visiting my bird feeder daily, I can't imagine looking at the large birds and thinking, "That looks tasty. Mmmm, ribeye of the sky."

Birds of all species are experiencing a decline in population. A recent study by The Cornell Lab of Ornithology found that since 1970, the bird population in the US and Canada has declined by 3 billion. That equates to 30 percent of birds. Grassland species fared even more poorly, losing 53 percent of their population since 1970. Waterfowl, the category under which sandhill cranes fall, have declined by 50 percent.

Habitat destruction is the number one cause of bird decline and certainly sandhill cranes have lost plenty of habitat, mainly to farming and development that has encroached upon wetlands, the sandhill cranes' home. But in the case of these birds, hunting historically played a huge part in their demise. In 1939 there were just 25 nesting pairs in Wisconsin, which prompted a law banning hunting of the birds. Populations have rebounded over the past eight decades since the hunting ban went into effect to nearly 20,000 breeding pairs.

One of the reasons it took so many years for the species to rebound is the birds are relatively slow to reproduce. They are typically four to five years old when breeding begins and lay only one or two eggs per year. Even if they lay two eggs, usually only one will survive and does not fledge until the age of three. By contrast, other species of game waterfowl lay clutches of egg that can number up to 12 or 15, allowing for more rapid recovery when hunted.

Legislators also want to allow hunting to take place in core breeding grounds. This means they would be killing the birds before they potentially have the chance to reproduce, or worse, leaving the chicks with no parents, further stifling population growth.

Another problem with this bill is that endangered whooping cranes often live in the same breeding areas as sandhill cranes and are often mistaken for the more prolific birds. The cranes have a near identical silhouette and can be hard to distinguish from one another. Whooping cranes are on the endangered species list and only about 200 nesting pair are known to exist in the US.

Sandhill cranes are also pretty tame, calm and slow moving. They do not leave, or even move when I go outside, and a couple of years ago they came to the house I was renting – just a couple of blocks away from where I live now – and seemed to be showing me their baby. The pair walked up to me with the baby between them and stopped as if to say, "Meet our new family member." I stood cautiously still – they have huge beaks and are tall enough to peck my eyes out – and greeted the newly minted bird, then they took the baby to the bird feeder to show it where to find delicious corn and sunflower seeds. Given their tameness, I cannot imagine that killing one would be much of a challenge.

Lastly, sandhill cranes equal tourism. There are birders that travel to Wisconsin specifically to watch and film sandhill cranes. When the cranes are at my bird feeder, people literally slam on their brakes in the middle of my busy street to take pictures and video of the birds.

I propose that if you want to shoot a sandhill crane, get yourself a camera and take it to the many marshes in the area. And if you want ribeye, go ahead and get the real thing.