How to improve habitat conservation for migrating cranes

Every year, North America’s critically endangered Whooping Cranes travel back and forth along a 4,000-kilometer corridor linking their nesting grounds in Canada and their winter home in Texas. Habitat in their path through the northern Great Plains is being lost at an alarming rate to agriculture and other development, but the birds’ widely dispersed movements make identifying key spots for protection a challenge. Now, researchers behind a new study from The Condor: Ornithological Applications have created a model of Whooping Crane habitat use with the potential to greatly improve the targeting of conservation efforts during their migration.