[TN-Bird] Tennessee Bird Records Committee accepts Hooded Crane as Wild
- From: "Kevin A. Calhoon" <kac@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <tn-bird@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>, "Ray Zimmerman" <znaturalist@xxxxxxxxx>, "Harold Sharp" <sharp_h@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 31 Mar 2013 12:35:58 -0400
After extensive research and consideration the Tennessee Bird
Records Committee voted 5-1 that a captive origin of the Hooded Crane
(seen at the Hiwassee Refuge in Meigs County TN from December 13, 2011
through January 2012) was unlikely and accepted the record as a wild
bird which will be added to the Official List of Tennessee Birds. We
spent a year reviewing this record, including communications with
individuals in the zoo world who currently have Hooded Cranes in their
collections as well as the manager of the "studbook" for the species in
captivity (I want to thank Mark Brogie for all the research he did in
this area). Their status in captivity is small and well controlled and
the four birds that were unaccounted for from Jerry Korn's collection
in Idaho were all pinioned. The crane at the Hiwassee refuge was not
pinioned, nor could have ever been before, it was full winged and a very
strong flier.
The Hooded Crane has shown some pattern of long-distance vagrancy
with records from Kazakhstan and eastern India which are both over 1000
miles east of normal breeding grounds in eastern Russia and their
regular wintering areas south. An overshoot to the northeast of its
nesting grounds by this distance puts the bird very close to Alaska. We
decided that this crane's behavior and season of occurrence are exactly
what would be expected if a wild Hooded Crane made it to Tennessee from
Eurasia. It was associated with migratory Sandhill Cranes and departed
north with them, the same behavior (and with the same Sandhill Crane
population) that presumed wild Common Cranes show in North America and
have been seen as far east as Indiana and Ontario.
We decided it was more likely that this Hooded Crane from Eurasia
somehow ended up with migratory Sandhill Cranes in North America and
over time drifted east to Tennessee, than it being a escaped captive
bird.
Kevin Calhoon
Secretary TBRC
Chattanooga, TN
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