puff 460 Mississippi Sandhill Cranes

Mississippi Sandhill Cranes

What's the birds' status?
Mississippi sandhill cranes (Grus canadensis pulla) are a critically endangered subspecies found nowhere else on earth in the wild but on and adjacent to the Mississippi Sandhill Crane National Wildlife Refuge. There are only about 100 individuals remaining, including about 20 breeding pairs. Without intensive management from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and its cooperators and partners, this unique bird may disappear from the wild.

What do they look and sound like?
Mississippi sandhill cranes are about four feet tall with a nearly six-foot wingspan. They have long legs and necks. They have a uniformly dark gray plumage, a red crown, white cheek patch, and black legs. They have a loud, very distinctive, rattling bugle call.

Why are they in trouble?

Habitat decline, mostly. The original range of this population was thought to extend along the Gulf coastal plain from southern Louisiana east into Mississippi, Alabama, and into the western Florida panhandle. Their range probably followed that of their habitat, the wet pine savanna. As this habitat was destroyed and degraded, the population declined. The last breeding records for Louisiana are from the 1910s and Alabama from 1960.

Much of the loss of crane habitat is due to the conversion of open pine savanna to pine plantations created following World War II. Habitat decline is also caused by suppression of the natural fire regime, degrading the savanna. (See Fire Management)

With air conditioning, rising living standards, and interstate construction, thousands of people moved to the Mississippi Gulf Coast to live and visit. The habitat was divided and subdivided until the refuge is now only small islands surrounded by human-altered landscapes. Cranes have also been directly harassed, shot, and may even suffer the effects of environmental contaminants.

What's so special about cranes?
Cranes are unique and are among the most spectacular of the bird families. In fact, they have captured the human imagination as few other birds have. Famed naturalist and pioneering wildlife biologist Aldo Leopold called them, "nobility in the midst of mediocrity."


Cranes live a very long time, maybe 15-20 years or more in the wild and much more in captivity (a captive Siberian crane lived more than 80 years). Cranes are serially monogamous, meaning they have very strong pair bonds and "mate for life."

Cranes dance! Alone or in groups, cranes will bow their heads, leap in the air, and throw sticks or other "nesting material." Cranes also perform many interesting threat displays and other ritualized postures.

Because of these behaviors, their stately beauty, and their haunting calls, cranes are featured in the folklore of many cultures. They are symbols of a happy marriage and long life in the Far East. Any art museum with an Asian theme would likely have crane art. The royal courts of many countries kept captive cranes as status symbols. Crane postures have been captured in the moves of modern dance as well as ancient martial arts. The crane is the national bird of South Africa and other countries.

There are 15 species of cranes in the world, found on all continents except South America and Antarctica. Besides being one of the most interesting bird families, cranes are among the most endangered. Eleven of the 15 are considered at risk of extinction. Two crane species are found in North America, the endangered whooping crane and the wide-ranging sandhill cranes.

What makes a Mississippi sandhill crane unique?
There are six different geographic types or subspecies of the wideranging sandhill cranes, all of which are uniformly gray in color, with a carmine unfeathered crown and a white cheek patch. Three are migratory subspecies, breeding in the northern United States and Canada and wintering in the southern United States and Mexico. Three are non-migratory subspecies: the threatened Florida sandhill, endangered Cuban sandhill and Mississippi sandhill.

The Mississippi sandhill crane was described as a distinct subspecies in 1972 and there are physiological, morphological, behavioral and other differences between them and other sandhill cranes. The Mississippi sandhill crane is a noticeably different darker shade of gray resulting in a more distinct cheek patch. Despite the limited number of breeding pairs in the wild population, electrophoretic studies indicate a reasonable level of genetic diversity. These studies also show that the Mississippi sandhill cranes posess one gene that is unique to sandhills and another that is different from even the Florida sandhill cranes.

What's the difference between cranes and herons or egrets?
Cranes look superficially like herons and their relatives. Both are tall, thin, and have long necks and beaks. Despite their appearance, though, cranes are not closely related to herons, and their way of living is quite different.


Cranes Herons and Egrets
Fly with neck outstretched Fly with recurved neck
Bare red crown Fully feathered head
Loud, rattling bugle call Croak call
Long-lived Short-lived
Monogamous Change mates
Nest on ground, solitary Nest in tree, colonial
Lay 1-2 eggs Lay 4-7 eggs
Parents take chick to food Parents take food to chick
Young stay with parents 10 months Parents desert young after fledging (?? months)
Long subadult period (3-8 years) Breed at 1-2 years

What do they eat?
The cranes have a varied diet, depending on the time of the year. They feed year-round on many kinds of plant material like edible tubers and roots, as well as some berries, nuts and fruits. In the spring and summer, they also eat animals found in their native habitats including insects, worms, crustaceans, and other invertebrates. They may very occasionally eat a few small vertebrates such as small fish or amphibians. Like other sandhill cranes, they have learned to feed in cultivated fields and pastures where they eat insects as well as corn and chufa (a kind of corn). They are not individual stealth hunters like herons and egrets, but are active feeders, probing their long beaks into the ground.

Do they migrate?
No, this is one of the three sedentary or non-migratory sandhill crane subspecies. They stay in the vicinity all year round. Many Mississippi sandhill cranes don't travel more than a few miles. There has not been a documented report of a "Mississippi" outside western Jackson County in a generation. Winter observations of sandhill cranes in southern Mississippi and Alabama outside of the refuge area are probably greater sandhills from the Upper Midwest. Most Novembers, a few dozen "greaters" spend 1-3 months on and adjacent to the refuge living alongside the resident birds.

What is their legal and conservation status?
The Mississippi and Florida sandhill cranes were listed as rare in the 1968 list of Rare and Endangered Wildlife of the United States. After being described as a separate subspecies, the Mississippi sandhill cranes were added to the United States' List of Endangered Fish and Wildlife on June 4, 1973. Jake Valentine wrote the first Recovery Plan in 1976; the third and last revision of the recovery plan was issued in 1991.

Status
Federal: Endangered
State: Endangered
IUCN: Critically Endangered (C2b)
The Nature Conservancy: Global-G5T1, National-N1, State-MS(S1), AL(SX)

What does the future hold?
Although there are a number of obstacles to recovery, many of the problems can be solved with intensive management and cooperation between agencies and people. The Mississippi sandhill crane and their unique habitat are slowly coming back.





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