The Great Crane Project
The Great Crane Project aims to re-establish a breeding population of cranes in the UK, securing its future as a British breeding bird throughout the UK. The first group of young cranes will be released into the wild in autumn 2010 in the West Country.
The project
The project is a partnership between WWT, RSPB, Pensthorpe Conservation Trust, and Viridor Credits Environmental Company. A £700k grant from Viridor Credits has secured the project for the next three years.
The Somerset Levels have been identified as the best location in the UK to release the cranes, and techniques for rearing young cranes have been researched and are being perfected.
The precise location will be kept confidential during the early stages of the programme, as cranes are sensitive to disturbance. Any programme would conform to agreed IUCN / Species Survival Commission guidelines for re-introduction projects.
The project will draw on the experience of the International Crane Foundation in Wisconsin, which has been successful in re-introducing Whooping Cranes to the wild in the USA.
Crane school at Slimbridge
As part of the research into rearing techniques and to provide exciting opportunities for visitors to see and understand the importance of the project, WWT opened 'crane school' at Slimbridge in 2007. Here, crane chicks are raised each spring and summer by keepers wearing specially created crane suits and fed using customised crane head litter pickers to finely tune the techniques for raising 'wild' crane chicks prior to release.
A second crane rearing facility at Slimbridge will be built this year - a 'behind the scenes' scaled up version of the crane school model. Here, WWT will hatch and rear the actual crane chicks that will be released into the wild on the Somerset Levels in autumn 2010.
Background
This large impressive bird was absent as a breeding species for nearly 400 years, before a small population re-colonised the Norfolk Broads – a former breeding site - in 1979. While successful breeding has taken place, the small Norfolk population of common cranes remains isolated and vulnerable.
Common cranes were once widespread, but drainage of extensive areas of wetlands and over-hunting caused them to disappear as a breeding bird by the start of the 17th Century.
There is a long history of cranes in Britain; they feature on illustrated manuscripts, and appeared on the menu for Henry III’s Christmas feast at York in 1251. They occur widely in Europe, where populations have suffered historically from loss of wetland habitats, but are becoming adapted to breeding in agricultural areas and are now increasing in some areas, such as eastern Germany. Small numbers visit eastern and southern England each year on passage.