[Times photo: Thomas Goethe]
Sandhill cranes prowl for food in a neighborhood on Lake Valrico east of Brandon recently. The birds like to seek handouts from residents instead of hunting for their own food.

TAMPA -- Sharon Donofrio heard the noise coming from the back of a home in Hunter's Green, an upscale neighborhood in New Tampa.

As she peeked around the side of the house, she saw the source: Two sandhill cranes were pecking at the home's screened enclosure. The noise stopped when a woman emerged from the house and put a bowl of food down for the birds.

"She basically trained them, and they wanted their breakfast," Donofrio said.

Starting today, such activity will be a crime -- a second-degree misdemeanor punishable by a $500 fine and 60 days in jail.

A rule adopted last month by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission bans the intentional feeding of sandhill cranes, foxes, wild bears and raccoons.

While cranes may seem the least imposing of those animals, the commission has received numerous complaints about their aggressive behavior.

Commission spokesman Henry Cabbage said the agency also has found that excessive human interaction with the birds makes them more susceptible to outside dangers, including dogs and cars.

Cranes are currently classified as a "threatened" species. That's one rung down from endangered.

"These are animals that have been made vulnerable because kindhearted people have fed them," said Ann Paul, an assistant manager for Florida Coastal Island Sanctuaries, a branch of the Florida Audubon Society.

In general, she said, the Audubon society supports "backyard feeding" of birds. But cranes are a different story.

While they are extremely intelligent, their behavior is easily influenced, Paul said.

People habituate the birds by consistently feeding them, she said. Then the birds pass the behavior on to their chicks.

That habit is what makes Josie Browning, an avian care specialist at the Suncoast Seabird Sanctuary in Indian Shores, worry about short-term repercussions once the cranes have to fend completely for themselves.

Birds that are accustomed to getting their food from humans could starve until they learn how to feed themselves, she said.

Steve Nesbitt, a biological administrator for the commission, said that's unlikely. Cranes, he said, are just plain lazy. Though they might have to work harder when people stop feeding them, they will adjust.

"If you force them to, they will go out and make a living for themselves," Nesbitt said.

Last year, Louis Kingsley built a nest for some cranes that were searching for a place to live near his Hudson home.

Using wood, a mesh screen and pine needles, he constructed a 4-foot, makeshift sandhill nest and partially submerged it in a pond on the community's golf course.

"(The cranes) stood there and watched me build the nest," Kingsley said. "And a couple of minutes after I was done, they moved right in."

The cranes added their own components to the nest before settling down and becoming a public spectacle.

A mother crane soon laid an egg. When it hatched, community members were there to welcome it.

"It looked like a drive-in theater," Kingsley said, referring to the neighbors who converged in golf carts to watch the birth. "These people would come every night to see if the egg would hatch, and when it did, they went nuts."

Kingsley said he usually doesn't feed the cranes, though he made an exception last year for one that was shot in the leg.

He said he understands the reasoning behind the new law, and thinks the best thing to do is let Mother Nature run its course. But he said he wouldn't let the law stand in the way of feeding an injured bird.

And for those who argue that he interfered with nature by building the nest, he said he was only trying to make a hostile habitat livable for the birds.

Nesbitt said sandhill cranes may have been around for several million years.

Fossil records put cranes in Florida up to 100,000 years ago.

Cabbage said the bird's power is often underestimated.

Cranes are attracted to shiny objects and their beaks are capable of penetrating a human skull. An incident Cabbage had with a crane last year opened his eyes.

While working with one of the birds, it latched on to his belt buckle with its beak.

"If I were a young child with a beret in my hair, that could have been a sad story," he said.

The commission is now working to spread the word about the new law. It is giving police across the state printed material on the dangers of crane feeding, which they can pass on to first-time offenders.

Nesbitt said he has never encountered a sandhill crane that is completely dependent on humans. If there is one, he said, it doesn't belong in the wild.

"It's a law of nature that only the strongest and smartest and fastest and best-equipped survive," Cabbage said. "Whether some birds can't make the transition, that's beyond our control."

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