THE SANDHILL CRANE

 

The sandhill crane (Antigone canadensis) is a species of large crane of North America and extreme northeastern Siberia. The common name of this bird refers to their habitat such as the Platte River, on the edge of Nebraska's Sandhills on the American Great Plains. Sandhill cranes are known to frequent the edges of bodies of water. The central Platte River valley in Nebraska is the most important stopover area for the nominotypical subspecies, the great sandhill crane (A. c. canadensis), with up to 450,000 of these birds migrating through annually.^[3][4]

 

In 1750, English naturalist George Edwards included an illustration and a description of the sandhill crane in the third volume of his A Natural History of Uncommon Birds. He used the English name "The Brown and Ash-colour'd Crane". Edwards based his hand-coloured etching on a preserved specimen that had 

 

been brought to London from the Hudson Bay area of Canada by James Isham.^[5] When in 1758 the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus updated his Systema Naturae for the tenth edition, he placed the sandhill crane with herons and cranes in the genus Ardea. Linnaeus included a brief description, coined the binomial name Ardea canadensis, and cited Edwards' work.^[6]

 

The sandhill crane was formerly placed in the genus Grus, but a molecular phylogenetic study published in 2010 found that the genus, as then defined, was polyphyletic.^[7] In the resulting rearrangement to create monophyletic genera, four species, including the sandhill crane, were placed in the resurrected genus Antigone that had originally been erected by the German naturalist Ludwig Reichenbach in 1853.^[8][9]

 Adults are gray overall; during breeding, their plumage is usually much worn and stained, particularly in the migratory populations, and looks nearly ochre.^[11] The average weight of the larger males is 4.57 kg (10.1 lb), while the average weight of females is 4.02 kg (8.9 lb), with a range of 2.7 to 6.7 kg (6.0 to 14.8 lb) across the subspecies.^[12][13] Sandhill cranes have red foreheads, white cheeks, and long, dark, 

 

pointed bills. In flight, their long, dark legs trail behind, and their long necks keep straight. Immature birds have reddish-brown upperparts and gray underparts.^[14][15] The sexes look alike. Sizes vary among the different subspecies; the average height of these birds is around 80 to 136 cm (2 ft 7 in to 4 ft 6 in).^[16][17] Their wing chords are typically 41.8–60 cm (16.5–23.6 in), tails are 10–26.4 cm (3.9–10.4 in), the exposed culmens are 6.9–16 cm (2.7–6.3 in) long, and the tarsi measure 15.5–26.6 cm (6.1–10.5 in).^[18] Wingspan is 78.7 in (200 cm).^[19]

Sandhill cranes' large wingspans, typically 1.65 to 2.30 m (5 ft 5 in to 7 ft 7 in), make them very skilled soaring birds, similar in style to hawks and eagles.^[17] Using thermals to obtain lift, they can stay aloft for many hours, requiring only occasional flapping of their wings, thus expending little energy. Migratory flocks contain hundreds of birds, and can create clear outlines of the normally invisible rising columns of air (thermals) they ride.

Sandhill cranes fly south for the winter. In their wintering areas, they form flocks over 10,000. One place this happens is at Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, 100 mi (160 km) south of Albuquerque, New Mexico. An annual Sandhill Crane Festival is held there in November.

Sandhill cranes have one of the longest fossil histories of any extant bird.^[20] A 10-million-year-old crane fossil from Nebraska is said to be of this species,^[21] but this may be from a prehistoric relative or ancestor of sandhill cranes, and not belong in the genus Grus. The oldest unequivocal sandhill crane fossil is 2.5 million years old,^[22] older by half than the earliest remains of most living species of birds, primarily found from after the Pliocene/Pleistocene boundary some 1.8 million years ago. As these ancient sandhill cranes varied as much in size as present-day birds, those Pliocene fossils are sometimes described as new species.^[23] Grus haydeni may have been a prehistoric relative, or it may comprise material of a sandhill crane and its ancestor.^[24][25]

 

Sandhill cranes vary considerably in size (much of which is clinal) and in migratory habits. A female of A. c. canadensis averages 3.46 kg (7.6 lb), 94 cm (37 in) in length, and has a wingspan of 1.6 m (5 ft 3 in). A male of A. c. tabida averages 5 kg (11 lb), 119 cm (47 in) in length, and has a wingspan of 2.12 m (6 ft 11 in). The southern subspecies (along with A. c. rowani) are intermediate, roughly according to Bergmann's rule.

 

 Three subspecies are resident: A. c. pulla of the Gulf Coast of the U.S., A. c. pratensis of Florida and Georgia, and A. c. nesiotes of Cuba.^[26] The northern populations exist as fragmented remains in the contiguous U.S. and a large and contiguous population from Canada to Beringia. These migrate to the Southwestern United States and Mexico. These cranes are rare vagrants to China, South Korea, and Japan and very rare vagrants to Western Europe.

The Florida sandhill crane was listed as EC or easily confused to facilitate an attempted reintroduction of the whooping crane (Grus americana) into Florida. The attempt failed, but the listing remained. The current list of endangered subspecies includes only two birds, A. c. nesiotes and A. c. rowani, with A. c. pratensis no longer listed.^[27] Sandhill cranes occur in pastures, open prairies and freshwater wetlands in peninsular Florida from the Everglades to the Okefenokee Swamp.^[28]

 

Some authorities^[who?] no longer recognize Canadian sandhill crane as a distinct subspecies, as insignificant genetic differentiation and minimal morphological differentiation exist between it and greater sandhill crane. The others can be somewhat more reliably distinguished in hand by measurements and plumage details, apart from the size differences already mentioned. Unequivocal identification often requires location information, which is often impossible in migrating birds.

 

Analysis of control region mtDNA haplotype data shows two major lineages. The Arctic and the subarctic migratory population includes the lesser sandhill cranes. The other lineages can be divided into a migratory and some indistinct clusters which can be matched to the resident subspecies. The lesser and greater sandhill cranes are quite distinct, their divergence dating to roughly 2.3–1.2 million years ago , 

 

some time during the Late Pliocene or Early Pleistocene. Glaciation seemingly fragmented off a founder population of lesser sandhill cranes, because during each major ice age, its present breeding range was frozen year-round. Still, sandhill cranes are amply documented from fossil and subfossil remains right to the modern era.^[25] Conceivably, they might be considered distinct species already, a monotypic G. canadensis and the greater sandhill crane, G. pratensis, which would include the other populations.^[26]

 

 

The scant differences between southern Canadian and western U.S. populations appear to result from genetic drift, due to the recent reduction in population and range fragmentation. Until the early 20th century, the southern migratory birds occupied a much larger and continuous range. Thus, the subspecies A. c. rowani may well be abandoned.^[26]

 

The two southern U.S. resident populations are somewhat more distinct. The Cuban population has been comparatively little studied, but appears to have been established on the island for a long time. They and the migratory greater sandhill cranes proper may form a group of lineages that diverged much later from a range in the southern U.S. and maybe northern Mexico, where they were resident. The southern migratory population would then represent a later re-expansion, which (re-)evolved their migratory habits independent from the northernmost birds, the geographically separated populations expanding rapidly when more habitat was available as the last ice age ended.^[26]

 

Sandhill cranes are fairly social birds that usually live in pairs or family groups through the year. During migration and winter, unrelated cranes come together to form "survival groups" that forage and roost together. Such groups often congregate at migration and winter sites, sometimes in the thousands.

 

Sandhill cranes are mainly herbivorous, but eat various types of food, depending on availability. They often feed with their bills down to the ground as they root around for seeds and other foods, in shallow wetlands with vegetation or various upland habitats. Cranes readily eat cultivated foods such as

 

Sandhill cranes raise one brood per year. In nonmigratory populations, laying begins between December and August. In migratory populations, laying usually begins in April or May. Both members of a breeding pair build the nest using plant material from the surrounding area. Nest sites are usually marshes, bogs, or 

swales, though occasionally on dry land. Females lay one to three (usually two) oval, dull brown eggs with reddish markings. Both parents incubate the eggs for about 30 days. The chicks are precocial; they hatch covered in down, with their eyes open, and able to leave the nest within a day. The parents brood the chicks for up to three weeks after hatching, feeding them intensively for the first few weeks, then gradually less frequently until they reach independence at 9 to 10 months old.^[12]

 

The chicks remain with their parents until one to two months before the parents lay the next clutch of eggs the following year, remaining with them for 10–12 months. After leaving their parents, the chicks form nomadic flocks with other juveniles and nonbreeders. They remain in these flocks until they form breeding pairs between two and seven years old.^[12]

 

As a conspicuous ground-dwelling species, sandhill cranes are at risk from a few predators. Corvids, such as ravens and crows, gulls, jaegers, raptors and mammals such as foxes, coyotes and racoons feed on young cranes and eggs.^[30] In Oregon and California, the most serious predators of chicks are reportedly coyotes, ravens, raccoons, American mink, and great horned owls, roughly in descending order.^[31][32] Cranes of all ages can be hunted by both North American species of eagles, bobcats, and possibly American alligators.^[33][34][35] Additionally, there is a report that even a much smaller peregrine falcon has successfully killed a 3.1 kg (6.8 lb) adult sandhill crane in a stoop.^[30][36] In New Mexico, humans hunt them with a permit granted in a lottery draw during late fall. There are a total of 17 states that allow hunting of Sandhill Cranes.

 In the 1930s, sandhill cranes were generally extirpated east of the Mississippi River, but their populations have recovered, with an estimated 98,000 in the region in 2018, a substantial increase over the previous year.^[39] Although sandhill cranes are not considered threatened as a species, the three southernmost 

 

subspecies are quite rare. Resident populations, not migratory birds, cannot choose secure breeding habitat. Many subpopulations were destroyed by hunting or habitat change. The greater sandhill crane proper initially suffered most; by 1940, probably fewer than 1,000 birds remained. Populations have since increased greatly again. At nearly 100,000, they are still fewer than the lesser sandhill crane, which, at about 400,000 individuals continent-wide, is the most plentiful extant crane.^[26][40

 

 The transplantation of wild birds and introduction of captive-reared birds into suitable low-population areas have been called viable management techniques.^[46]

 

The Mississippi sandhill crane has lost the most range; it used to live along most of the northern Gulf of Mexico coast, and its range was once nearly parapatric with that of its eastern neighbor. As of 2013, about 25 breeding pairs exist in an intensively managed population. The Mississippi Sandhill Crane National 

 

Wildlife Refuge—established in 1975 when fewer than 35 of the birds existed—has the biggest release program for cranes on Earth, and 90% of the cranes there were raised in captivity.^[47] The second viable egg from a two-egg nest was occasionally removed from the nests, starting in 1965, to become part of a captive flock. This breeding flock is divided between the Audubon Institute's Species Survival Center and White Oak Conservation in Yulee, Florida. These cranes have produced offspring for annual releases into the refuge.^[48]

A Mississippi sandhill crane was the first bird to hatch from an egg fertilized by sperm that was thawed from a cryogenic state. This occurred at the Audubon Institute, as part of this subspecies' endangered species recovery plan.

In January 2019, 25 to 30 thousand cranes (both greater and lesser subspecies) were found wintering at the Whitewater Draw State Wildlife Area near McNeal in southeast Arizona.

Sandhill cranes have been tried as foster parents for whooping cranes in reintroduction schemes. This failed when the whooping cranes imprinted on their foster parents, later did not recognize other whooping cranes as their conspecifics, and unsuccessfully tried to pair with sandhill cranes, instead.

 

The Cuban sandhill crane (subspecies A. c. nesiotes) is not as rare as once believed and while it remains threatened its population is increasing.^[49] Based on very limited information, up until the 1990s it was typically believed to consist of about 300 birds.^[40] Detailed surveys conducted from 1994 to 2002 resulted in an estimate of about 525 individuals,^[50] while surveys from 2004 to 2015 estimated that the population now was above 550. Subsequent reviews have placed the Cuban sandhill crane 

 

population at around 700 birds in 2017.^[49] They inhabit dry or seasonally flooded grasslands and savannas, as well as nearby wetlands, and the remaining populations are divided into ten localities (it formerly occurred in two additional localities) in six provinces.^[50] Based on the surveys from 1994 to 2002, six of the ten known localities 

 

each are home to less than 25 Cuban sandhill cranes; the last four each are home to more than 70. The two largest, one in the Zapata Swamp (c. 120 cranes) and another on Isla de la Juventud (c. 170 cranes), are increasing, whereas most other 

subpopulations appear to be stable, but some likely are too small for long-term survival and possibly are decreasing.^[50] Subsequent surveys indicate that at least the four largest subpopulation now are larger than they were in the 1994–2002 surveys.^[49]

 

 

Primary threats to Cuban sandhill cranes are habitat loss due to tree planting, spreading shrubs, expanding agriculture and fires, predation by non-native mammals (dogs, mongooses and feral pigs), and poaching. Population fragmentation is also a problem, as all remaining localities are separated by distances that are greater than the largest distances non-migratory sandhill cranes are known to move.^[50]

 

Sandhill cranes occasionally reach Europe as vagrants. The first British record was on Fair Isle in April 1981,^[51] and the second was in Shetland in 1991.^[52] Small groups have also been seen in parts of eastern China^[53] and Taiwan.^[54] In 2022, reports emerged of regular sightings of sandhill cranes in New Brunswick, on the Atlantic coast of Canada.^[55] The mythical Mothman, a humanoid creature reportedly seen in the Point Pleasant West Virginia area from November 1966 to December 1967 is thought to have originated from sightings of out-of-migration sandhill cranes.^[56][57]

 

 In 2023 the “Mississippi sandhill crane” was featured on a United States Postal Service Forever stamp as part of the Endangered Species set, based on a photograph from Joel Sartore's Photo Ark. The stamp was dedicated at a ceremony at the National Grasslands Visitor Center in Wall, South Dakota.^[58

 

 

 Geographical distribution of Sandhill crane.   Breeding  Migration  Year-round  Nonbreeding

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE SPIRIT BEAR

 

The spirit bear, sometimes called the Kermode bear (Ursus americanus kermodei), is a subspecies of the American black bear and lives in the Central and North Coast regions of British Columbia, Canada.^[2] It is the official provincial mammal of British Columbia and symbol of Terrace, British Columbia.^[3][4] While most Kermode bears are black, between 100 and 500 fully white individuals exist.^[5] The white variant is known as spirit bear, and is most common on three islands in British Columbia (Gribbell, Princess Royal, and Roderick), where they make up 10–20% of the Kermode population.^[6] Spirit bears hold a prominent place in the oral traditions of the indigenous peoples of the area. They have also been featured in a National Geographic documentary^[7] and in the BBC TV series Planet Earth III.^[8]

 

At the Spirit Bear Lodge, Klemtu, British Columbia

The Kermode bear was named after Frank Kermode, former director of the Royal B.C. Museum,^[2] who researched the subspecies and was a colleague of William Hornaday, the zoologist who described it.^[9][10] Today, the name Kermode is pronounced as /kərˈmoʊdi/ kər-MOH-dee differing from the pronunciation of the Kermode surname, which originates on the Isle of Man (/ˈkɜːrmoʊd/ KUR-mohd).^[11]

 

 White Kermode bears are not albinos, as they still have pigmented skin and eyes.^[2][6] Rather, a single, nonsynonymous nucleotide substitution in the MC1R gene causes melanin to not be produced.^[6] This mutant gene is recessive, so Kermode bears with two copies of this mutant, nonfunctional gene appear 

 

white, while bears with one copy or no copies appear black.^[6] Two black bears can mate and produce a white cub if both of these black bears are heterozygous, carrying one copy of the mutant MC1R gene, and both mutant genes are inherited by the cub. Additional genetic studies found that white Kermode bears breed more with white Kermode bears, and black Kermode bears breed more with black Kermode bears, in a phenomenon known as positive assortative mating.^[6] One hypothesis is that this happens because young bears imprint on their mother's fur colour.^[5]

Kermode bears are omnivorous for most of the year, subsisting mainly on herbage and berries except during autumn salmon migrations, when they become obligate predators.^[5] During the day, white bears are 35% more successful than black bears in capturing salmon.^[12] Salmon evade large, black models about twice as frequently as they evade large white models, giving white bears an advantage in salmon hunting. The white fur of the bear is harder to spot under water by fish than black fur is, so the bear can catch fish more easily.^[12] On some islands, white Kermode bears have more marine-derived nutrients in their fur, indicating that white Kermode bears eat more salmon than the black Kermode bears.^[13]

A Kermode bear from the Great Bear Rainforest, British Columbia

The U. a. kermodei subspecies ranges from Princess Royal Island to Prince Rupert, British Columbia, on the coast and inland toward Hazelton, British Columbia. It is known in the Tsimshianic languages as moksgmʼol. In the February 2006 Speech from the Throne, the Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia 

 announced the government's intention to designate the Kermode, or spirit bear, as British Columbia's official animal. It was adopted as such in April of that year.^[3] A male Kermode bear can reach 225 kg (496 lb) or more. Females are much smaller, with a maximum weight of 135 kg (298 lb). Straight up, it stands 180 cm (71 in) tall.

 Fewer than 400 white-coloured bears were estimated to exist in the coast area that stretches from Southeast Alaska southwards to the northern tip of Vancouver Island;^[14] about 120 inhabit the large Princess and Prince Royal Islands.^[14] The largest concentration of the white bears inhabits 80-square-mile (210 km²) Gribbell Island, in the territory of the Gitgaʼata people.^[15]

 

The bear's habitat was potentially under threat from the Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipelines, whose planned route would have passed near the Great Bear Rainforest.^[16][17] Indigenous groups including the Gitgaʼat opposed the pipeline.^[18] The Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline was rejected by the federal government in 2016.

Although the Kermode bear is not rare, considerable conservation efforts have been made to maintain the subspecies' population due to the bear's cultural significance.

 

The majority of the Kermode bears' protein intake is from salmon during the fall.^[12][19][15] Salmon are a keystone species and are important to the nutrient intake of both aqueous and terrestrial environments.^[20] The salmon contribute nutrients to water during spawning and contribute to the land with decomposition of their carcasses when predators, such as bears, scatter them throughout the forest.

 

 In 2012, the coastal First Nations banned trophy hunting of all bears in their territories in the Great Bear Rainforest. In 2017, after much public pressure to end the practice, the government of British Columbia banned the trophy hunting of grizzlies in the Great Bear Rainforest, but the hunting of black bears remains legal. A concern in regards to hunting is potential poaching.^[21] Grizzly bears also pose a threat to 

Kermode bear populations because of the decline of natural resources, especially salmon populations that are becoming subject to climate change and overfishing.^[15][22] Using noninvasive hair-line traps scientists tracked the movement of grizzlies across the coasts and rainforest. They found that grizzlies are moving into black bear and Kermode bear salmon feeding grounds more often. This disrupts the feeding of Kermode and other black bears, as they often retreat once grizzlies arrive.^[15]

 

 

Spirit Bear Lodge is an ecolodge that provides bear sightseeing opportunities, provides education about British Columbia bears, and has stimulated the economy of the Klemtu Indian Reserve. The operators have complained about hunting, stating they have seen bear carcasses, and that hunting makes the bears more wary of humans and harder to spot.^[21]

In October 2012, a Kermode bear, believed to be the first in captivity, became a resident of the British Columbia Wildlife Park in Kamloops.^[23] The yearling cub was found abandoned in northwestern British Columbia on the side of Terrace Mountain near Terrace. After two unsuccessful attempts to rehabilitate and release him back into the wild, the cub, now nicknamed Clover by handlers, was sent to the park 

 

conservation officers decided that he was not a candidate for relocation.^[24] The park has plans to create a custom home for the bear, which escaped from his temporary enclosure once.^[25] Animal-rights group Lifeforce believed that the bear was healthy enough to survive on his own and that he should be relocated and released back into the wild.^[26] Provincial government wildlife officials maintained their position against attempting a long-distance relocation, stating that the risks outweighed the possible benefits, and as of February 2023, the bear remains in captivity.^[27][28]