Winter habitat selection of red-crowned crane (Grus japonensis)

Abstract

This paper studied the winter habitat selection of red-crowned cranes (Grus japonensis) in Yancheng National Natural Reserve, Jiangsu Province. There were six types of habitat used by red-crowned cranes, i.e. salt-works, aquiculture ponds, reed lands, grassy tidal lands, salting wormwood lands and wheat fields. The wheat field was a new type of habitat used by red-crowned cranes. More than 70 percent of red-crowned cranes chose grassy tidal lands, salting wormwood lands, and reed lands as their most important habitats. In recent years, the distribution of red-crowned cranes moved southward gradually. Red-crowned cranes prefer artificial or semiartificial wetlands rather than original wetlands, successive distribution was broken into fragments.