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Captive Breeding

Captive Breeding>Oka Crane Breeding Center

The first stage of the project consisted of creating a genetic pool of the Siberian Crane in captivity. In the zoos of the world there were very few cranes at the time, and those that were there did not breed. There were no Siberian Cranes at all in the zoos of the Soviet Union. It was decided that a Breeding Center be organized on the territory of an already existing nature reserve – one that was not too far from Moscow and one that had enough potential to sustain such an enterprise. The Oka Reserve in the Ryazan Region was chosen. Ornithologist V.G. Panchenko was appointed first head of the Center.

In 1978, the first breeding facilities were built by the employees of the Reserve. The buildings of a former camping facility were converted into cranes’ living quarters. Later, in 1980, a new crane breeding facility with 10 indoor and outdoor pens was built, and by 1984 – a separate facility for raising chicks and the first hexagonal complex of 12 indoor and outdoor pens. The latter is now used as a Demonstration Pen where different species of cranes are presented for the benefit of visitors and tourists. In 1988-89 two more hexagonal pens were built several kilometers away from the Breeding Center. The International Crane Foundation (ICF), the Bird Park Walsrode (Germany) and the Cracid Crane Breeding and Conservation Centre (Belgium) provided substantial assistance to the Oka Reserve Crane Breeding Center including equipment, instruments and medicine.

Science expeditions sponsored by the All-Russia Research Institute for Nature Protection and Preserves in 1977-1978 collected 12 eggs of Siberian Crane of the Eastern population and sent them to the International Crane Foundation. In 1979 17 more eggs were transported from Yakutia to the Oka Reserve and the Bird Park Walsrode in Germany. Such was the beginning of the first population of Siberian Crane in captivity.

Upon confirmation of the fact of the nesting of Siberian Cranes in the delta of the Ob River, 7 eggs of the wild Siberian Crane were taken and transferred from that area into the Oka Breeding Center from 1981 to 1996. In total, the “Siberian Crane” Project used 43 Siberian Crane eggs and 36 Eurasian Crane eggs from nature. Forty Siberian Crane eggs were transported from ICF – they were laid by the first Yakutian birds which started breeding in the USA. Most of the birds raised from those eggs were released back into nature.

In 1979 a one-year-old Siberian Crane was brought to the Breeding Center. This bird was rescued by Ms. T.P. Soldatova in the neighborhood of the village of Gorky of the Shurykarsky District of the Yamalo-Nenetsky Autonomous District, when it was only a downy chick. In 1982 and 1987 two adult wounded Siberian Cranes were brought over from Yakutia.

Table 1: Siberian Cranes captive flock dynamics in Oka Crane Breeding Center in 1979-2003

As of January 1 2004 there were 26 adult birds of Siberian Crane (12 male and 14 female) in the Oka Reserve Breeding Center.

A similar work was started in the USA, where a purposeful study and breeding of the rarest species in the world – the Whooping Crane (White American Crane) – the ICF and the Patuxent Wild Life Research Center worked out a special methodology of crane breeding. The methods and recommendations of the abovementioned organizations were used as guidelines by the workers of the Oka Breeding Center.

One of the most important stages in crane breeding is the forming of a pair. The first pairs were formed with great difficulties since all of the birds participating were raised by humans in captivity. In order to receive fertile eggs from such pairs it is still necessary to use artificial insemination.

In the fist years of the work of the Breeding Center, crane chicks were raised by the methods of artificial breeding, but in the latter years more emphasis has been given to natural breeding technologies which brings about a better quality of offspring.

There are two ways of captive breeding: the hand-rearing method and the “costume” method. Since the first chicks were born from eggs taken from nature or other breeding centers, only the hand-rearing method was used at first. Due to the chicks’ inherent aggression, these first youngsters were raised separately from one another in special “chick only” facilities until they reached the age of one to one-and-a-half months. These birds were completely isolated from their parents and other adult cranes.

The “costume” method or the method of isolated raising of chicks was first used when it became clear that in order to release birds into nature and in order to make any breeding possible, the birds need to be raised knowing that they are cranes, not humans (in other words, from birth and on, it was necessary that they saw “cranes” of their species, rather than people, care for them, feed them and teach them how to be adult cranes. From the moment of birth the chicks were isolated so that they did not see any humans and did not hear their voices. People who approached these chicks wore white costumes, which would hide the shape of a person and their face. For feeding, at first, some home-made puppets of the Siberian Crane head and neck were used, but from 2001, an anatomically correct puppet of the Siberian Crane head is being used. This puppet was made by a professional Japanese artist by name of Kharuo Uchiama. For audio contact, they use portable players with the recorded voices of real adult birds.

The only natural method of breeding is parental breeding. This way of breeding helps the chicks grow up into real wild birds, imprinted on their own species, and also they grow up healthier and stronger. The only draw-back of this method is the limited number of Siberian Crane pairs breeding in the Center, and, consequently, a small number of chicks being born that way. A growing number of breeding pairs can be reached by using surrogate parents – which are cranes of other species. During nesting and incubation, cranes react calmly to their eggs being replaced by other eggs and they will raise the chicks which will hatch just as willingly, as though they were their own. This method was first used in 1999. This technique is adequate, however, if the previous imprinting on wrong species is corrected in the stage of learning flight using the birds of the same species.

At present, the technology of crane breeding in captivity is pretty well established. There are clear recommendations for keeping, feeding, sanitary conditions; methods have been worked out which would allow for a rising productivity of breeding. Additionally, it is necessary to mention, that breeding of such intelligent birds as cranes is not only science, it is also a form of art, which requires spiritual involvement on the part of people who work with the birds.

In the period from 1985 to 2003 a total of 87 Siberian Cranes were released into nature from the Oka Breeding Center. 30 of those birds were released in the areas of nesting, in the northern parts of West Siberia, 43 – in the place where a large number of Eurasian Cranes gather in the right before the migration season on the territory of the Belozerskiy Reserve in the South of Tyumen Region, 5 – in the spot where migrating wild Siberian Cranes stop to rest on the territory of the Astrakhan State Reserve, 5 – in the area where Siberian Cranes spend their winters in Fereydunkenar, Iran, and 4 in the place of winter residence of Siberian Cranes in the Keoladeo Park in India.

From the first years of the work of the Breeding Center, its workers have been involved in education of the local residents as well as tourists. During the tours, guides not only demonstrate different species of cranes, but tell about the process of hatching, about raising the birds, the birds’ behavioral patterns, show the mockup of the Siberian Crane’s head, which is used for feeding chicks, allow people to touch a crane, tell interesting stories from the life of our chicks the life stories of people involved in this work.

2004

Breeding and raising Siberian Cranes in 2004 was done mostly by natural methods: natural lighting, natural incubation of eggs, natural care by crane-parents.

The general results of the breeding of 8 pairs of Siberian Crane are presented in Table 1.

Table: Results of Siberian Crane Breeding in 2004

* - egg broken by birds.

** - all eggs of this pair are infertile, but when a fertile egg on a different pair was placed in their nest, they incubated it successfully and raised the chick.

***- one of the chicks prepared for release in the place of wintering of Siberian Cranes in Iran

Pairs were allowed to raise one chick each. 4 Siberian Crane eggs were placed in the nests of cranes of other species. One of the hatched chicks was killed by his foster parents – a pair of Red-Crowned Cranes – the day it hatched. Three Siberian Crane chicks were raised pairs of Red-crowned, WhitenNaped and Eurasian Cranes that have had previous experience of chick-rearing. Chicks raised in these families were growing and developing normally.

Chicks raised by parents, in addition to the normal captive crane diet (crane pellets, boiled egg, farmer cheese, pieces of fresh raw fish) were regularly fed berries, germinated grain, live small fish, mollusks and insects, in fact, those foods which young birds need to know and learn to secure for themselves in the wild.

Prior to departure to the places of release, chicks were placed in groups. They were grouped according to age, the sort of family that raised the chick (Siberian Cranes or surrogate parents), and also the number of birds already present in the places where release was planned. At the age of about two months, when young birds learn to fly, a repeated imprinting occurs on their own species. Because of that, the chicks raised by surrogate parents were removed from their foster parents and placed near the Siberian Crane families.

In general, the season of Siberian Crane breeding this year can be evaluated as successful.

2003

10 pairs of Siberian Crane bred at the OCBC. The results are presented in Table 1.

Table 1: The results of Siberian Cranes breeding in 2003

* - two eggs were sent to Kunovat Refuge (Yamalo-Nenetsky national region) to be placed in the nests of wild Eurasian Crane

This year a six-year-old female Siberian Crane, which represents the third generation of captive-bred Siberian Cranes (a grand-daughter of the first female that bred at the OCBC in 1988), nested for the first time. Since last summer, she was kept together with a year-old male, which was reared in isolation. In spring the young pair demonstrated nesting behavior and despite the fact that the male had not yet reached maturity the female laid two eggs. One of them was artificially inseminated. The pair incubated the egg by themselves and successfully reared the chick.

One pair of Siberian Cranes laid eggs again 3 days after the full term of incubating (30 days) of the first clutch was over.

To produce offspring from birds incapable of mating eight females were inseminated artificially.

Thirty-one Siberian Crane eggs were incubated using natural or a combination of artificial and natural incubation. One egg was placed into a mechanical incubator (table 2).

This year a six-year-old female Siberian Crane, which represents the third generation of captive-bred Siberian Cranes (a grand-daughter of the first female that bred at the OCBC in 1988), nested for the first time. Since last summer, she was kept together with a year-old male, which was reared in isolation. In spring the young pair demonstrated nesting behavior and despite the fact that the male had not yet reached maturity the female laid two eggs. One of them was artificially inseminated. The pair incubated the egg by themselves and successfully reared the chick.

One pair of Siberian Cranes laid eggs again 3 days after the full term of incubating (30 days) of the first clutch was over.

To produce offspring from birds incapable of mating eight females were inseminated artificially.