A few recent studies have highlighted how artificial water sources such as reservoirs, stock ponds, and flooded meadows give an assist to migrating cranes.
The Wildlife Society summarized the findings, which included a study that looked into the effects of temporary flood plains utilized by ranchers taking part in grass hay agriculture. When ranchers seasonally divert water to flood their fields, some of it is absorbed into the ground, recharging aquifers that sustain wetland habitats in riparian floodplains, the organization explained.
The study's team found that migrating greater sandhill cranes use these temporary habitats as food foraging sites. Plus, another study found that whooping cranes take advantage of artificial water sources such as reservoirs and stock ponds during their migrations in drought years.
According to the Missouri Department of Conservation, birds support the environment in many ways, including by spreading seeds through their droppings and eating insect pests that would otherwise decimate crops.
However, of the 1,093 species of birds protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, 89 are listed as either threatened or endangered under the U.S. Endangered Species Act and another 342 are listed as Birds of Conservation Concern, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
This new information on migrating cranes can help guide management decisions in the future, which could help protect these important flyers — sandhill cranes are one of the world's few crane species that are not currently threatened, and whooping cranes are listed as endangered by the ESA.
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Patrick Donnelly, author of the sandhill crane study and landscape ecologist at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Intermountain West Joint Venture, said offering incentives in the Farm Bill to help ranchers address natural resource protection could help preserve important habitat stopovers for cranes.
"[We need to] protect those systems in the future," he told The Wildlife Society.
Meanwhile, cranes aren't the only species in need of a helping hand. According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, among the 163,000 species on its Red List, 45,300 are threatened with extinction.
The good news is that conservationists are working hard to protect animals the world over and have celebrated a number of successes.
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For instance, researchers in Kenya discovered a baby black rhino in the wild following a pointed conservation effort for this critically endangered species. And in Saudi Arabia, a $500 billion rewilding effort is yielding results, as 60 baby of various species were born in the first breeding season after their reintroduction to the land.
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