Subject: [Tweeters] Whooping Cranes Are Back From The Brink
Date: Tue Mar 19 10:20:00 PDT 2019
From: Jon. Anderson and Marty Chaney - festuca at comcast.net

Thanks, GrrlScientist, for sharing this article. I really enjoy your perspectives.


Note, however, that although the overall population is rebounding from the bottleneck of the 1960s, there is still concern and room for improvements.


The resident population in the Florida prairies has not thrived as well as the migratory flocks. Because those birds experienced a high rate of mortality and low reproductive success related to habitat conditions, predation, and powerline strikes, there are only 14 remaining birds in the Kissimmee group. The US Fish and Wildlife Service intends to capture and relocate these remaining birds to join a similar resident population effort in Louisiana.


Their 2017 Environmental Assessment is here, for those interested in the background:

https://www.fws.gov/southeast/pdf/environmental-assessment/a-proposal-to-translocate-whooping-cranes-from-a-discontinued-non-essential-experimental-population-in-central-florida-to-an-ongoing-nep-in-southwestern-louisiana.pdf


I was lucky enough to see one of the remaining birds in Florida this winter, at Chapman's Double C Bar Ranch, where a lone Whooping Crane fed from the cattle trough, and Sandhill cranes fed in the pasture. Hope she does well in Cajun country . . .


Best,

- Jon. Anderson

OlyWA

https://jonsperegrination.blogspot.com/
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