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 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.
Citation Information
Publication Year | 2000 |
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Title | Post-release survival of hand-reared and parent-reared Mississippi sandhill cranes |
DOI | 10.1650/0010-5422(2000)102[0104:PRSOHR]2.0.CO;2 |
Authors | David H. Ellis, George F. Gee, Scott G. Hereford, Glenn H. Olsen, T. David Chisolm, Jane M. Nicolich, Kathleen A. Sullivan, Nancy J. Thomas, Meenakshi Nagendran, Jeff S. Hatfield |
Publication Type | Article |
Publication Subtype | Journal Article |
Series Title | The Condor |
Index ID | 1003793 |
Record Source | USGS Publications Warehouse |
USGS Organization | National Wildlife Health Center; Patuxent Wildlife Research Center |