Geographic Distribution of the Mid-Continent Population of Sandhill Cranes and Related Management Applications

• Published in: Wildlife Monographs
• Main Authors: Gary L. Krapu, David A. Brandt, Kenneth L. Jones, Douglas H. Johnson
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: The Wildlife Society 2011
• Subjects: Arctic; Canada; Nunavut; Subarctic; Alaska; Siberia
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1002/wmon.1

The Mid-continent Population (MCP) of sandhill cranes (Grus canadensis) is widely hunted in North America and is separated into the Gulf Coast Subpopulation and Western Subpopulation for management purposes. Effective harvest management of the MCP requires detailed knowledge of breeding distribution of subspecies and subpopulations, chronology of their use of fall staging areas and wintering grounds, and exposure to and harvest from hunting. To address these information needs, we tagged 153 sandhill cranes with Platform Transmitting Terminals (PTTs) during 22 February—12 April 1998–2003 in the Central and North Platte River valleys of south-central Nebraska. We monitored PTT-tagged sandhill cranes, hereafter tagged cranes, from their arrival to departure from breeding grounds, during their fall migration, and throughout winter using the Argos satellite tracking system. The tracking effort yielded 74,041 useable locations over 49,350 tag days; median duration of tracking of individual cranes was 352 days and 73 cranes were tracked >12 months. Genetic sequencing of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) from blood samples taken from each of our random sample of tagged cranes indicated 64% were G. c. canadensis and 34% were Grus canadensis tabida. Tagged cranes during the breeding season settled in northern temperate, subarctic, and arctic North America (U.S. [23%, in = 35], Canada [57%, n = 87]) and arctic regions of northeast Asia (Russia [20%, n = 31]). Distribution of tagged cranes by breeding affiliation was as follows: Western Alaska—Siberia (WA—S, 42 ± 4% [SE]), northern Canada—Nunavut (NC—N, 21 ± 4%), West-central Canada—Alaska (WC—A, 23 ± 4%) and East-central Canada—Minnesota (EC—M, 14 ± 3%). All tagged cranes returned to the same breeding affiliation used during the previous year with a median distance of 1.60 km (range: 0.08–7.7 km, n = 53) separating sites used in year 1 and year 2. Fall staging occurred primarily in central and western Saskatchewan (69%), North Dakota (16%), southwestern Manitoba (10%), and ...