Northern park sets a record for number of whooping-crane nests
Wood Buffalo a World Heritage Site as home to only wild flock of the tall birds
A record number of whooping cranes have been found in Wood Buffalo National Park, according to the 2017 nesting survey by Parks Canada and Environment and Climate Change Canada.
The surveyors found 98 nests in the park belonging to the endangered species, which beats the previous record of 82 set in 2014.
Resource management officer Sharon Irwin, one of the surveyors, said they do not have a specific number yet for the current whooping crane population. But with a fledge chick count last year of 45, it is likely to be a definite increase.
“Numbers are increasing more and more every year, which is really exciting,” she said.
The cranes returned to Wood Buffalo in mid-April after migrating to the Gulf of Mexico for the winter months.
The national park is considered a UNESCO World Heritage Site because it is home to the only wild migratory whooping crane flock. The park extends about 45,000 square kilometres across northern Alberta and the Northwest Territories.
The number of whooping cranes is on the rise since it plummeted to a total of 21 back in 1941. The most recent recorded total in Wood Buffalo is 329 cranes.
Irwin said a poor year in habitat conditions could reduce the numbers a bit, but with a substantial increase in newborns, any impact won’t be as detrimental.
“The more cranes there are in the population, the less chance that some kind of catastrophic thing could really knock the population down,” she said.
And the new record in nests is a good start. Another survey will be conducted in August to determine how many chick eggs were laid.