Date: April 18, 2018
Source: American Ornithological Society Publications
Office
Every year, North America's
critically endangered Whooping Cranes travel back and forth along a
4,000-kilometer corridor linking their nesting grounds in Canada and their
winter home in Texas. Habitat in their path through the northern Great Plains
is being lost at an alarming rate to agriculture and other development, but the
birds' widely dispersed movements make identifying key spots for protection a
challenge. Now, researchers behind a new study from The Condor:
Ornithological Applications have created a model of Whooping Crane habitat
use with the potential to greatly improve the targeting of conservation efforts
during their migration.
Researcher Neal Niemuth and his
colleagues used a database of Whooping Crane sightings in the region since 1990
to examine cranes' habitat use in North and South Dakota. Analyzing the spatial
patterns of the sightings, they found that Whooping Cranes prefer habitat that
includes a mix of croplands and wetlands and are more attracted by a single
large wetland basin than multiple smaller basins. Their results also show the
effects of different conservation strategies across the region. East of the
Missouri River, where efforts have been specifically targeted toward waterfowl
conservation, lands under conservation management were more likely than other
locations to be used by Whooping Cranes. West of the river, however, this was
not the case.
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