White-naped Crane

About the white-naped crane

The white-naped crane is a large bird in the crane family, Gruidae, easily identified by its grey body, reddish face patch, white throat, and the white stripe that runs from the back of its crown down its neck, giving the species its name. It stands about 130 cm (4.3 ft) tall, measures 112 to 125 cm (44–49 in) in length, and weighs around 5.6 kg (12 lb), with pinkish legs and a grey-and-white-striped neck. Juveniles look different from adults, with a brown head and a pale throat rather than the adult's more contrasting pattern. Among cranes with similar markings, the white nape is the feature that sets this species apart.

The species was formerly classified in the genus Grus, but a 2010 molecular phylogenetic study found that grouping to be polyphyletic — meaning it didn't reflect a single natural lineage. As a result, the white-naped crane was moved, along with the sarus crane, the brolga, and the sandhill crane, into the resurrected genus Antigone, first named by German naturalist Ludwig Reichenbach in 1853.

White-naped cranes breed in shallow wetlands and wet meadows in northeastern Mongolia, northeastern China, and adjacent parts of southeastern Russia; Mongolia alone is thought to hold at least half of the world population. The species has a varied vocal range, including a growling contact call, a high-pitched call used at short range, and loud calls that differ between males and females, among them aggressive guard calls and flight intention calls.

Behavior and diet

White-naped cranes breed in spring, nesting in pairs in areas of deeper water, which offers some protection from predators. Eggs are laid over a roughly two-month window between April and the end of May. Chicks hatch a brownish-yellow color with dark spots and stay as fledglings for 70 to 75 days before becoming capable of flight; they reach sexual maturity between two and three years old. Parents use a lower-frequency contact call specifically when chicks are nearby.

Diet shifts with the season. During the breeding season, white-naped cranes eat mostly wetland plants, tubers, and roots. In winter and during migration, they turn more to rice, cereal grains, and waste grain left in farm fields. Their feeding style — standing in place and digging for deeper vegetation — contrasts with the red-crowned crane's habit of walking around and picking at surface vegetation, a difference that lets the two species share similar habitat without competing directly for food.

Migration follows two main routes tied to breeding location. Cranes that breed in the west migrate through China to Poyang Lake, while eastern breeders move south through Korea. The two main wintering populations gather near the Yangtze River in China and in the Korean Demilitarized Zone, as well as on the island of Kyūshū in Japan, with counts conducted repeatedly through the winter to track movement.

Range and habitat

White-naped cranes breed in northeastern Mongolia, northeastern China, and adjacent areas of southeastern Russia, where a program at Khingan Nature Reserve raises eggs supplied by U.S. zoos to help bolster the wild population. They favor shallow wetlands and wet meadows for breeding, generally along lake edges and river valleys, and also use mixed forest grasslands or lowlands; when foraging, they'll move into farmland to graze as well.

Winter brings the population south along two main paths to the Yangtze River region of China and the Korean Demilitarized Zone and Kyūshū, Japan. Ongoing conversion of wetlands to farmland in China and eastern Russia has reduced and altered the habitat available to the species across its range.

Conservation status

The white-naped crane is listed as vulnerable on the IUCN Red List and appears on CITES Appendices I and II. An estimated 3,700 to 4,500 mature individuals remained in the wild as of 2018. The leading threats are habitat loss, wetland degradation, and climate change: wetlands are being converted to farmland in China and eastern Russia, increasing disturbance from people and livestock and fragmenting the habitat that remains. This fragmentation brings more contact with humans, contributing to illegal hunting and predation by free-roaming dogs; although the crane itself is not a game species, it's frequently disturbed by hunting of other aquatic game species during its own breeding season. Climate change is drying out breeding wetlands, and the resulting fires have destroyed nesting sites, eggs, and young; as habitat shrinks, cranes concentrate more densely at remaining sites, which raises the risk of disease spreading through the population.

Every country within the species' range provides some form of legal protection and has established protected areas, and long-term monitoring is underway in Russia and northeastern Mongolia. Some of the crane's most important habitat falls within the waterbird flyway site network of the East Asian–Australasian Flyway Partnership, and there are proposals to nominate these sites as protected wetlands under RAMSAR, as well as to establish transboundary protected areas between Russia, China, and North Korea. Artificial feeding stations set up in Japan have been shown to increase the wintering population there, and banding and radio telemetry studies are helping researchers track migration routes and wintering areas.

Agricultural expansion has also increased conflict with farmers, since cropland offers an appealing food source that cranes will feed on and damage, sometimes leading to hunting or killing of cranes in response. Mitigation methods include visual and acoustic deterrents, physical barriers, and changes in farming practice. In captivity, hatchlings risk imprinting on humans, which can make them reject their own species as mates — the two-decade bond between a crane named Walnut and her keeper, Chris Crowe, is a widely reported example of this.