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ICF's field and site projects are supported by seasonal interns, who assist with all facets of our programs, including education, field research, monitoring, and care of our captive cranes. The following update is by Nathan Schmidt, a 2010 Field Ecology Department intern, who shares his experience assisting with our Sandhill Crane research in Wisconsin. This is the first in a new series, Field Notes, which highlights the dedication and creativity underlying our work as crane conservationists.
Here in the Field Ecology Department, we’ve just wrapped up another chick-capture season. This time of year—lasting from late June to early August—is one of the most important periods of time for long-term crane research, as it is during this time that we catch and band Sandhill Crane chicks in Briggsville, WI (our main long-term crane study area). Banding the cranes is arguably the single most important thing we do for our field studies, because without knowing who is who we wouldn’t be able to keep track of where the birds are moving or what they’re doing on any time scale larger than a few hours. The work we do during this window of time enables us to do the field studies that we do during the rest of the year.
Through these studies, we have come to understand much about the population ecology of Sandhill Cranes—their longevity, productivity, territoriality, dispersal, and many other aspects of the behavior of individual cranes and the population as a whole. The understanding we gain about these animals is crucial to making informed decisions about Sandhill Crane management and policy.
This summer, ICF Research Associate Matt Hayes also finished gathering genetic data from these captures. By comparing the genetics of the cranes, we will gain understanding of how different populations of cranes in different regions are related. For this project we caught and banded birds not only in Briggsville, but also in several other select sites around the Midwest. Depending on the region where they were captured, the birds have different colored identification bands (learn more about our banding studies). The bands we put on the chicks should stay on all of its life (key to helping us understand the longevity of Sandhill Cranes) without affecting the bird. By keeping track of banded birds over such a wide area, this allows us to study the dispersal of these cranes on a larger scale.
We are also applying what we learn from this long-term research on Sandhill Cranes to better predict and manage threats to other cranes species, which are not as easy to study. For example, the research we have done on crop damage caused by Sandhill Cranes has given us a much better understanding of how to deal with crop damage by cranes around the world, and has implications for many other bird species as well. In addition to this, the understanding we are gaining of Sandhill Cranes will help us manage human-crane interactions with Whooping Cranes once their population becomes large enough to create a noticeable presence in Wisconsin.
This year, we captured six Sandhill Crane chicks in Briggsville, as well as one pair of chicks on site here at ICF that was nesting in our very own Gromme marsh! This last pair made us chase them all over the site, crawling on our hands and knees through a forest and halfway across a prairie before we could finally get close enough to catch them. We also caught four chicks in and around Seney National Wildlife Refuge in the upper peninsula of Michigan for Matt Hayes’ genetics research.
Capture itself is not just one of the most important times of the year for the Field Ecology Department; it’s also one of the most fun! Especially for interns (like myself), it offers us a chance to get out in the field and get some hands-on time with the birds we study from a distance the rest of the year. When we move to catch them, the adults flush and fly away while the chicks, who have not yet fledged and are unable to fly, usually crouch down into high grasses and attempt to hide. We then can simply jog up to them, put a hand on them to keep them still, and pick them up by tucking them under an arm. To show you what we do with the cranes once we’ve picked them up, I’ve made a short video (see link to right).
The advantage to working with crane chicks is their inability to fly and their relative small size; these attributes make them easy to catch and easy to handle. The adult Sandhill Cranes, however, are another matter entirely. To capture them, we start baiting them with corn in the late summer and early fall—but that’s another matter altogether. Check back later in the year to find out more about it!
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Watch our video to learn more about our field work with Sandhill Cranes in Wisconsin.
Special thanks to Caroline Armer for the video and Nathan Schmidt for editing and narration.
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