Post-Release Survival of Hand-Reared and Parent-Reared Mississippi Sandhill Cranes

The Mississippi Sandhill Crane (Grus canadensis pulla) reintroduction program is the largest crane reintroduction effort in the world. Here we report on a 4-year experiment in which we compared post-release survival rates of 56 hand-reared and 76 parent-reared Mississippi Sandhill Cranes. First-year...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Condor (Los Angeles, Calif.) Calif.), 2000-02, Vol.102 (1), p.104-112
Main Authors: Ellis, David H., Gee, George F., Hereford, Scott G., Olsen, Glenn H., Chisolm, T. David, Nicolich, Jane M., Sullivan, Kathleen A., Thomas, Nancy J., Nagendran, Meenakshi, Hatfield, Jeff S.
Format: Article
Language:English
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Summary:The Mississippi Sandhill Crane (Grus canadensis pulla) reintroduction program is the largest crane reintroduction effort in the world. Here we report on a 4-year experiment in which we compared post-release survival rates of 56 hand-reared and 76 parent-reared Mississippi Sandhill Cranes. First-year survival was 80%. Surprisingly, hand-reared cranes survived better than parent-reared birds, and the highest survival rates were for hand-reared juveniles released in mixed cohorts with parent-reared birds. Mixing improved survival most for parent-reared birds released with hand-reared birds. These results demonstrate that hand-rearing can produce birds which survive at least as well as parent-reared birds and that improved survival results from mixing hand-reared and parent-reared birds.
ISSN:0010-5422
1938-5129
DOI:10.1093/condor/102.1.104