Not having enough of the highest quality food in their diets may have affected the cranes' winter health, as well as their abilities to successfully nest. To make the natural drought even worse, human uses took much of the water from the rivers, reducing the water that reached the bogs. It's a situation that threatens to get worse as more people move to Texas and place more demands on the water supplies. This question took a good ear, and we're cheering for Kenneth and also Chris, Michela, Brian, and Melissa from grade 7 at Iselin Middle School. Give at least two reasons.
Voiceprints are a valuable discovery for safe, non-invasive monitoring of cranes.
Thanks to the work of Dr. Bernhard Wessling, we now know that individual voices can tell us which crane is which. Voiceprints are reliable ways to identify cranes without expensive banding, stressful capturing, or risk of losing ID bands. This photo shows Dr. Bernhard Wessling with a wind-proof microphone. The shaggy mane over the microphone eliminates wind buffeting and provides for excellent quality recordings of the crane calls. Answer only ONE question in each e-mail message.