Interesting info about a Sandhill Crane

[blackdog]

I found a dead Sandhill the other day on the farm. It was all intact and I thought I would run it over to Bird Studies and see if they would like to have it . Well this bird was banded. They called me with the info......Banded in Wisconsin 1995.....Interesting:0

 

[lcooper]

Wow, was it shot or died naturally?

 

[blackdog]

...it appears it has died of old age or froze or both....

 

[canvasbacksca]

It most likely did die of old age as it was almost certainly at least 1-yr-old when banded meaning that it was at least 16-yrs-old when it died.

From this about sandhill cranes: http://bna.birds.cornell.edu/bna/species/031/articles/demography

"Mean life expectancy for any bird that reached the age of independence was 7 yr (S. A. Nesbitt and C. T. Moore, unpubl. data). Maximum age in the wild is 21.6 yr for G. c. pratensis in Florida (SAN), and 19.4 yr for a bird from the mid-continent population (Klimkiewicz and Futcher 1989)."