Common Crane
Place to admire: Animal Plaza & China
Scientific name: Grus grus
IUCN-status: Least concern
Habitat
The Common Crane is found in Scandinavia and northeastern Europe to northern and central China and the Russian Far East. This bird also inhabits Turkey, Caucasus, Armenia and Azerbaijan. Its wintering areas include France, the Iberian Peninsula, northwestern and northeastern Africa, the Middle East, Pakistan, India and southern and eastern China.
Outside the breeding season, the Common Crane is found in dry savannas, grasslands, wetlands with rivers, streams and brooks, wetlands with freshwater lakes, intertidal areas with mud and salt flats, man-made croplands and pastures.
In the breeding season, the Common Crane lives at shallow wetlands with (wooded) marshes, pocket forests, low moorland and peat bogs, shallow wetlands with freshwater marshes and pools, reed beds and irrigated lands.
Natural behavior
The Common Crane is a migratory bird and has major migration routes. In the spring and fall, you can even admire the Common Crane from the comfort of your own garden. In these 2 periods, the Common Crane flies over the Netherlands to migrate to its breeding grounds or to its wintering grounds.
Threats
Despite being a non-endangered species, the Common Crane faces a variety of threats. In both breeding and non-breeding areas, the species is threatened by habitat loss and habitat degradation, due to dam construction, urbanization and agricultural expansion. In parts of the breeding area, the bird faces nest disturbance due to tourism and recreation. This gives crow, wild boar and foxes an increased opportunity to penetrate the nest. On migration routes and in wintering areas, habitat fragmentation, pesticide poisoning and loss of traditional foraging and roosting sites occur. In addition, collisions with utility lines often occur in highly developed areas along migratory routes and in wintering areas, causing increased mortality in adults. The greatest threats, however, are hunting and illegal shooting of this species.