Take-off for project to bring back cranes to Britain

FOUR centuries after hunting and the loss of their marshland habitat drove them to extinction in Britain, three young cranes have taken wing to prove that the birds are well and truly on their way back.

The cranes, pictured right, are the first to be hatched in the wild in two different counties and to have successfully fledged and taken to the skies.

The project to reintroduce cranes in the wild has been going on since 2009.

‘Bodes well for the birds’

After a couple of false starts – when torrential rain is thought to have killed off one chick and another clutch of eggs were eaten – some young cranes hatched last year.

Two of the cranes took off on farmland on the Somerset Levels, while the other was born and grew up at the Slimbridge Wetland Centre, Gloucestershire, run by the Wildlife and Wetlands Trust.

Damon Bridge, Great Crane Project manager said: ‘To have young on the wing at in Somerset and at Slimbridge so early on is really fantastic and bodes well for the birds quickly establishing themselves in the South and West.’

‘The cranes are long-lived birds with many breeding attempts ahead of them and we are well on our way to our target of 20 breeding pairs in the South West by 2025.’ A small population has also been established in the Norfolk Broads since the 1980s.