Drought May Be Cause of Bizarre Bird Migrations

Endangered whooping cranes flew 2,500 miles from Canada to Texas, where they usually spend the whole winter. Instead, they pecked around for a short time and flew back. Scientists believe it may be because of the stubborn drought in Texas.

Published

about 1 year ago

Categories

Science, Wildlife

Topics

Wildlife

Places

Canada, Texas

Tags

animal, wetland, nature, ornithology, bird migration, bird, migration, extreme weather

Transcript

Script[Location - Date:MAD ISLAND, TEXAS -][Source:AP][VO:][SOT/:RICHARD KOSTECKE/BIRD EXPERT, THE NATURE CONSERVANCY]("the big news this year in texas was the weather and fire. So we actually had a one year drought of record.")("well in the preserve itself we had about 1100 acres of wetland, fresh water wetland normally. This year we were down to about 200 acres of fresh water wetland. And it wasn't necessarily in the best condtion. One of the big news items has been the whooping cranes. They did the first census along the coast. Roughly two thirds of them were actually discovered during the census. They know they have so whooping cranes that are actually over wintering at ranger lake which is east of austin. Those birds actually did make it to the coast, decided things werent good and headed back up to granger. They also have some whooping cranes that are as far north as nebraska which is very unusual. There's a whole bunch of cranes roughly one third of the known population that have not been accounted for theres some interesting reports that we have maybe some of the water foul because it's been mild to the north of texas that are maybe hanging out up there. We've got some interesting reports that some ducks that have gone unusually far south so theres country of belize has apparently had a bunch of new records of new species of water foul theyve never seen before. so normally we dont think of that but you've got birds scattered all over the place looking for habitats right now.")(****END****) VIDEO PRODUCER: RAMIT MASTI --------------------------- VIDEO SOURCE: AP-----------------------VIDEO APPROVAL: BOB MCCALL ----------------------------VIDEO RESTRICTIONS: NONE ----------------------------------MARKET EMBARGO (S): NONE --------------------------------SCRIPT/WIRE SOURCE:------------------------------------