Artificially incubate and hand-rear cranes in captivity

Overall effectiveness category Unknown effectiveness (limited evidence)
Number of studies: 2
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How is the evidence assessed?

Effectiveness

76%
Certainty

31%
Harms

0%

Calculating overall effectiveness category

Background information and definitions

Artificial incubation involves removing eggs from incubating parents and using an incubator to hatch them. Techniques can be extremely complex, with precision humidity and temperature control and turning of the eggs to ensure correct development Hand-rearing can be used with chicks from artificially-incubated eggs or with chicks removed from parents after hatching and involves manually feeding chicks until independence. Both techniques can be used to encourage parents to produce more offspring, or when naturally-raised chicks and eggs have low survival.

Study locations

Key messages

A replicated and controlled study and a small study, both from the USA, found that hand-reared birds showed normal reproductive behaviour and higher survival than parent-reared birds.

About key messages

Key messages provide a descriptive index to studies we have found that test this intervention.

Studies are not directly comparable or of equal value. When making decisions based on this evidence, you should consider factors such as study size, study design, reported metrics and relevance of the study to your situation, rather than simply counting the number of studies that support a particular interpretation.

Supporting evidence from individual studies

In order to test hand-rearing techniques for use with whooping cranes Grus americana, a small study in the USA in 1992-3 (Duan & Bookhout 1997) investigated the behaviour of hand-reared male greater sandhill cranes G. canadensis tabida after release and found that they exhibited normal reproductive behaviour. All six paired with females in 1992 (none nested); four pairs nested in 1993, with one nest flooding but the others producing one or two eggs each. The hand-reared males incubated the eggs and three hatched (the remaining nest with two eggs was abandoned following the researchers’ visit), although none of the chicks survived more than a week. The authors conclude that reproductive behaviour is not affected by hand-rearing, which consisted of ‘isolation rearing’ – with the birds not given any access to humans, but instead reared by puppets heads (to avoid imprinting on human carers, see ‘Use puppets to increase the survival or growth of hand-reared chicks’ for studies on this intervention).
Study and other actions tested
Referenced paper
Duan W. & Bookhout T.A. (1997) Breeding behavior of isolation-reared sandhill cranes. Journal of Field Ornithology, 68, 200-207.
A replicated, controlled study in a breeding centre in Mississippi, USA, between 1989 and 1996 (Ellis et al. 2000) found that first-year survival of captive-bred, hand-reared Mississippi sandhill cranes Grus canadensis pulla was higher than for captive-bred, parent-reared birds (approximately 85% survival for 56 hand-reared birds vs. 77% for 76 parent-reared birds). Hand-reared birds were reared with mounts of brooding adults and heat lamps, and were taught to feed by costumed humans with mounts of crane (see ‘Use puppets to increase the survival or growth of hand-reared chicks’ for more information). Details of the releases are discussed in ‘Release captive-bred individuals’.
Study and other actions tested
Referenced paper
Ellis D.H., Gee G.F., Hereford S.G., Olsen G.H., Chisolm T.D., Nicolich J.M., Sullivan K.A., Thomas N.J., Nagendran M. & Hatfield J.S. (2000) Post-release survival of hand-reared and parent-reared Mississippi sandhill cranes. The Condor, 102.

Please cite as:

Williams, D.R., Child, M.F., Dicks, L.V., Ockendon, N., Pople, R.G., Showler, D.A., Walsh, J.C., zu Ermgassen, E.K.H.J. & Sutherland, W.J. (2020) Bird Conservation. Pages 137-281 in: W.J. Sutherland, L.V. Dicks, S.O. Petrovan & R.K. Smith (eds) What Works in Conservation 2020. Open Book Publishers, Cambridge, UK.

Where has this evidence come from?

List of journals searched by synopsis

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This Action forms part of the Action Synopsis:

Bird Conservation

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