| | Accession Number | 5004671 |
| | Title | Mortality and Survival of Mississippi Sandhill Crane Chicks |
| | Project Description | The endangered Mississippi sandhill crane (Grus canadensis pulla) is a non-migratory subspecies |
| | known to exist in the wild only in southeastern Mississippi. The population of wild bred cranes is |
| | now down to less than 20 individuals. In the past decade over 100 captive bred Mississippi |
| | sandhill cranes have been successfully released on the Mississippi Sandhill Crane National |
| | Wildlife Refuge. There have been documented matings, nestings, and eggs laid on the Refuge, |
| | with matings occurring between wild pairs, between captive pairs, and with one captive member |
| | and one wild member of the pair. These cranes have formed as many as 34 nests in one year, yet |
| | no chicks have been fledging in the last few years. Some infertile and dead-in-the-shell eggs have |
| | been examined at Patuxent over the past 4 years, but no clear pattern of loss exists. In the past, |
| | most of the eggs in the field appear to have hatched live chicks, but the fate of these chicks is |
| | unknown. We propose to use techniques developed in the captive crane flock at Patuxent Wildlife |
| | Research Center to implant small radio transmitters in crane chicks. We will then follow these |
| | chicks to document their survival or death. All dead crane chicks will be recovered as soon as |
| | possible and necropsied to help determine the cause of death. We will then determine if |
| | management factors can be changed to increase chick survival. Factors that we will be |
| | considering will include 1) unusual disease prevalence among crane chicks, 2) unusual |
| | contaminant loads in crane chicks due to diet or environment, 3) inadequate nutrition available for |
| | crane chicks, 4) heavy predation on crane chicks, 5) unusual factors in parent rearing behavior, 6) |
| | climatic conditions associated with crane chick mortality. Management adaptations will then be |
| | recommended to improve crane chick survival and we will test crane chick survival in subsequent |
| | years after implementation of these management changes. |
| | Keywords | chick survival, disease, grus canadensis pulla, mississippi sandhill crane, mortality, predation, |
| | radio transmitter, sandhill crane, |
| | Principal | Glenn H Olsen, USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center: glenn_olsen@usgs.gov; |
| | Investigators |
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