North American Crane Working Group

 

Date of this Version

2018

Document Type

Article

Citation

PROCEEDINGS OF THE NORTH AMERICAN CRANE WORKSHOP 14:115-119

Comments

Copyright © 2018 North American Crane Working Group. Used by permission.

Proceedings may include articles not presented at Workshop.

Abstract

We hypothesized that territorial sandhill cranes (Grus canadensis) in densely populated breeding areas occupy smaller home ranges that are richer in optimal habitat than those in less densely populated breeding areas. We analyzed satellite telemetry data collected from 2012 to 2016 for 3 and 2 sandhill cranes from dense and less dense breeding areas, respectively. Tracked sandhill cranes in a dense breeding area tended to have smaller home ranges (0.37-14.25 km2) with higher concentrations of wetlands (27%) and row crops (40%) than tracked sandhill cranes in the less dense breeding area (8.80-48.81 km2, 14% wetlands and 26% row crops). Studies on variation of breeding season habitat use will help to better understand the areas where breeding sandhill cranes are likely to congregate and can inform management and harvest decisions for sandhill cranes.

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