13/12/2018
The last
remaining Siberian
Crane from the western population has arrived back in
northern Iran for another winter.
The male
crane, which is fondly known as Omid – Persian for 'Hope' – pitched down
at the traditional wintering haunt of Fereydoon Kenar on 21 November, weeks
later than his usual return at the end of October. He is the final remaining
member of the western population of Siberian Cranes and spends his summers
alone too, 5,000 km to the north along the Kunovat and Alymka Basins in
Siberia.
Siberian
Crane is now recognised as Critically Endangered worldwide. An eastern
population of around 2,000 individuals still persists, breeding in
north-eastern Siberia and wintering at Poyang Lake in the Lower Yangtze River
Basin in China, but is severely threatened by development of
the Three Gorges Dam (and other dams) along the Yangtze River.
However,
the picture is even more bleak for the western population, which has been in
decline for decades due to numerous factors at play, not least habitat
loss and illegal hunting. Small numbers wintered in India until 2002, when
they failed to return for the first time. As a result, by 2002, the
remaining population of the world's western Siberian Cranes all wintered at
Fereydoon Kenar, Iran. Despite the best efforts of conservationists, numbers continued
to drop in the 2000s and, on 9 February 2009, the last
remaining female died during a storm, leaving the ageing Omid as the sole
survivor.
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