Whooping Crane Research Paper

549 Words2 Pages

The population of the whooping cranes most definitely gets affected from precipitation, because the population gets affected negatively with high precipitation levels present, while positively with low precipitation levels. The population of the whooping cranes gets affected this way because if there were high precipitation levels for a year, the hatching success rate drastically decreases from the precipitation, who damages the eggs laid by the cranes. By either breaking the eggs, making the cranes not be present to incubate their eggs, or actually destroying the birds’ nests. Also, the high precipitation levels may even cause a few fatalities, which is a very serious problem involving this particular endangered species. While with low precipitation …show more content…

On year 6, the rain level was in the right range for the whooping crane population, with the amount of rainfall at 8.1 cm, and the snowfall at 4.6 cm. This great weather resulted in 8 nests, 8 eggs laid, and 4 eggs hatched. It might not seem like a major population growth, but with this specific endangered species, its population growth isn’t as quick as many other species. This was the main reason why it brought the attention to many officials to protect the whooping cranes from extinction. In this particular year, the hatching success rate was at a 50%, which is surprising because this year was the one who brought up the population well, into year 7. The amount of rainfall in year 7 was 7.4cm, while the snowfall was 0.0cm. Once again, these were perfect conditions for the whooping cranes. This caused the overall crane population (including chicks), to increase by 8 cranes, from year 6 to year 7. The hatching success rate was a high of 83%, the highest it has ever been in the 16 years of data! You can obviously see here that these low precipitation conditions are very beneficial to the overall growth of this

More about Whooping Crane Research Paper

Open Document