Crowned Cranes - are they introduced in the UAE? (1 Viewer)

[raymie]

I browsing the eBird maps for Gray Crowned Crane and noticed there actually a huge amount of reports of this species across the United Arab Emirates, far outside this species' normal range. eBird lists them as escapees (which doesn't mean much), but there seem to be checklists with as many as 20 birds scattered all across the country. iNaturalist has many observation, as well. I can't find any info on this population outside of those places though, and they don't seem to be on the country's official checklist. Does anyone have more info on the status of this population?

 

[Butty]

eBird lists them as escapees

Why is this not your answer?

 

[raymie]

Why is this not your answer?

Because eBird isn't always reliable with knowing what's what when it comes to exotics. And I have a hard time believing that over 50 cranes wandering around an entire country in flocks constitute a bunch of escapees.

 

[Butty]

Why 50? Why not one escape (or many fewer than 50) wandering about? Do you mean in your first post that there are individual counts of up to 20? - even if that's so, I'm not clear why they shouldn't be escapes (or a free-flying semi-captive population), as that seems far more likely than the next-most-likely option which would be a local wild breeding population originating from escapes. In my opinion.

 

[raymie]

Why 50? Why not one escape (or many fewer than 50) wandering about? Do you mean in your first post that there are individual counts of up to 20? - even if that's so, I'm not clear why they shouldn't be escapes (or a free-flying semi-captive population), as that seems far more likely than the next-most-likely option which would be a local wild breeding population originating from escapes. In my opinion.

How does such a large amount of cranes escape and spready across the country? It just doesn't make sense to me. It's possible, but it feels like there's something more going on here.

 

[Mono]

Starting in about 2000 there was a craze in the UAE to have cranes as a status symbol. The cranes were illegally imported and released into gardens, golf courses and landscaped developments as decoration. There was a clampdown led by CITES around 2009 but the existing cranes have escaped their sites are a breeding in the wild in the UAE.

 

[kb57]

As eBird is placing them in the 'exotic-escaped' category (i.e. Category E), this presumably means that locally they are still not accepted as a naturalised exotic (i.e. Category C)?

 

[raymie]

Starting in about 2000 there was a craze in the UAE to have cranes as a status symbol. The cranes were illegally imported and released into gardens, golf courses and landscaped developments as decoration. There was a clampdown led by CITES around 2009 but the existing cranes have escaped their sites are a breeding in the wild in the UAE.

Thanks! Do you have more info into to what extent they are breeding? Where did you learn this?

As eBird is placing them in the 'exotic-escaped' category (i.e. Category E), this presumably means that locally they are still not accepted as a naturalised exotic (i.e. Category C)?

Yes, but that status may or may not reflect what's actually going on with the species. Here in North America, even some of our oldest and largest introduced populations aren't officially accepted as established by authorities even though they very clearly are well-established and in some cases have been around for many decades, even over a century in one case. I don't know how good authorities are with this in the UAE.

 

[kb57]

Thanks! Do you have more info into to what extent they are breeding? Where did you learn this?

Yes, but that status may or may not reflect what's actually going on with the species. Here in North America, even some of our oldest and largest introduced populations aren't officially accepted as established by authorities even though they very clearly are well-established and in some cases have been around for many decades, even over a century in one case. I don't know how good authorities are with this in the UAE.

I get your point, and I guess this reflects the difficulty of reaching a consistent definition of 'self-sustaining'. Given sufficient data, this would be easy enough to model in terms of population dynamics (as has been done, for example, with deliberate re-introductions to estimate necessary starting numbers).

It would be interesting if some UAE birders could jump in at this point - if the population has remained stable or is increasing, and artificial recruitment stopped around 2009, there would seem to be a good case for an upgrade to Category C.