Last Call for the Siberian Crane 
A determined captive breeding effort must succeed 
for this stately bird to rise from the ashes of war 
by George Archibald 
Two magnificently sculpted cranes 
stand in the throne room of the em- 
peror’s summer palace in Beijing (Pe- 
king), China. The pair served the em- 
perors as symbols of long life and 
happiness. Although the Chinese and 
other peoples have for centuries 
painted and sculpted cranes as har- 
bingers of good fortune, the majestic 
birds could best serve the contempo- 
rary world as symbols of crisis. 
The status of the Siberian crane 
( Grus leucogeranus) is particularly re- 
vealing. This endangered crane, inter- 
mediate in size between a sandhill 
George Archibald) International Crane Foundation 
Cranes can be bought at food stalls 
in Afghan towns, above. Hunting, 
and the outbreak of hostilities 
in Afghanistan, could mean the 
demise of the Siberian cranes 
that winter in India, opposite. 
crane and a whooping crane, has a 
long, powerful beak and, except for 
black primary feathers and a bright 
red face, is snow white. Within recent 
memory, the cranes numbered in the 
thousands, but as of 1979/80 the spe- 
cies had been reduced to approxi- 
mately 250 to 300 individuals. 
The attrition of this species has not 
been a consequence of environmental 
problems on its breeding grounds, 
which are vast expanses of sparsely 
inhabited tundra in Siberia. Rather, 
the Siberian cranes have been pressed 
hard by hunting and wetland destruc- 
tion along their migration routes and 
wintering range. Now the cranes’ pre- 
carious hold on existence is threatened 
by violent political upheavals in the 
Near East. 
Two populations of wild Siberian 
cranes remain. One group breeds in 
western Siberia and migrates in two 
flocks. One flock, numbering nine 
birds in 1978, winters in the Caspian 
lowlands, which traverse the northern 
border of Iran. Although Iran is pre- 
dominantly a country of mountains 
and desert, the Caspian lowlands re- 
ceive precipitation adequate to sustain 
cultivated crops, forests, and wetlands. 
In recent years Iran’s Department of 
the Environment, under the inspired 
leadership of Eskandar Firouz, estab- 
lished several wetland sanctuaries for 
migratory birds. Ironically, I found 
the relict population of cranes utilizing 
flooded rice fields that are part of 
large duck-trapping complexes. 
In an attempt to restock Siberian 
crane populations that have been ex- 
tirpated, the International Crane 
Foundation (ICF), Iran’s Department 
of the Environment, and the USSR 
Ministry of Agriculture in 1975 began 
a cooperative program to place Si- 
berian crane eggs produced in cap- 
tivity into the nests of wild common 
cranes ( Grus grus). The hope was that 
the common crane foster parents, nest- 
ing in wetlands in the western USSR, 
would teach their Siberian crane “off- 
spring” the migration route to win- 
tering areas in Iran. Since the Islamic 
revolution, however, the future of the 
foster-parenting project, the status of 
the relict flock of Siberian cranes, and 
the fate of the wetland sanctuaries 
is in question. 
The second flock from the western 
Siberian crane population migrates 
3,700 miles to winter at the Keoladeo 
Ghana Sanctuary in north-central In- 
dia. These birds breed in one of the 
least populated areas of the world, 
and winter in one of the most densely 
populated. On the way, they stop to 
feed and rest at a large saline lake 
called Ab-i-Estada in Afghanistan, be- 
fore continuing over the Hindu Kush 
Mountains to India. The cranes are 
hunted for food during their stopover 
in Afghanistan. As a result, this flock 
has declined from seventy-seven birds 
in 1970 to fifteen in the winter of 
1980/81. In 1978 the Ministry of Ag- 
riculture of Afghanistan, in cooper- 
ation with the U.N.’s Food and Ag- 
riculture Organization and the World 
Wildlife Fund-International, proposed 
to establish Ab-i-Estada as a nature 
reserve and provide wardens to protect 
the cranes from poachers. Tragically, 
the recent outbreak of hostilities in 
Afghanistan has thwarted these con- 
servation efforts. During a state of 
war, the protein packaged in a Si- 
berian crane may spell survival for 
a tribesman in the backcountry. 
The second, larger population of Si- 
berian cranes, numbering about 200, 
breeds in eastern Siberia and winters 
on as yet undetermined wetlands in 
the basin of the Yangtze River in 
northeastern China. Chinese orni- 
thologists are conducting ground sur- 
George Archibald; International Crane Foundation 
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