North American Crane Working Group
Date of this Version
1997
Document Type
Article
Citation
Valentine Jr., Jacob M., and Scott G. Hereford. History of breeding pairs and nesting sites of the Mississippi sandhill crane. In: Urbanek RP, Stahlecker DW, eds. 1997. Proceedings of the Seventh North American Crane Workshop, 1996 Jan 10-13, Biloxi, Mississippi. Grand Island, NE: North American Crane Working Group. pp. 1-9.
Abstract
Thirty-four Composite Nesting Areas (CNA's) of endangered Mississippi sandhill cranes (Grus canadensis pulla) within the current breeding range in Jackson County, Mississippi, were located from 1965 to 1996, primarily by ground searching. Of those 34 CNA's located, 28 were on I of the 3 refuge units and 6 were off but adjacent to the refuge's Ocean Springs Unit. Five of the CNA's had 2-3 distinct smaller core nesting areas within. Two CNA's had active nests in more than 20 years, and those nests accounted for 11 % of the total. Nine CNA's accounted for 130 (63%) of the nests, Eleven CNA's were used in only I year. The tirst marked cranes nested in 1985; by 1996, 34 marked cranes had nested, The mean distance between different CNA's used by same individual(s) in different years was 2.0 km. The shortest distance between active nests in a year was 0.8 km. The mean distance from release pen to CNA for 32 released cranes was 2.9 km; only 4 cranes used CNA's in different units from their release pens.
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Comments
Used by permission of the North American Crane Working Group.