WhoopingCrane_CitizenScience_Smith_Liz_RockportTX_10June2020_Reel4020.mp3

Liz Smith [00:00:00] We, we actually started out with all of these game cameras at these ponds, that we needed volunteers to go through those thousands of pictures and find the ones with whooping cranes and sandhill cranes. And, of course, there's all kinds of other, you know, activity going on with alligators and coyotes and bobcats being documented. And so many of our early volunteers were trained to go through those camera pictures.

Liz Smith [00:00:28] And then we also were able to get them out in the field, in areas that they normally wouldn't be able to go, because they were contributing to the research and monitoring. We've kind of expanded from that, in looking at how the cranes were using different-sized ponds, if they have deep areas only, or if they were shallow. And so, the citizen-scientists would go through and document the length of time that they're at, at a pond and what they're doing.

Liz Smith [00:00:57] And that led us to redesigning how we were creating water for the cranes to a more swale-type approach, instead of a deep pond. And that the water didn't need to be very deep, just constant enough in order for them to drink, and it also created more habitat for them to feed in. So that was really, came to a really successful fruition.

Liz Smith [00:01:25] And then, the behavior has been expanded to where there's been research projects in conjunction with Sam Houston State University and their Earthwatch program, where we have people come from all over the world to work for two weeks, and they get out there and they videotape crane behavior 20 minutes at a time and do every 15-second intervals of what they're doing. And then they get out in the marsh and they look at salinities in ponds and how much wolfberry there are, and crane crab-trap transects. So that's really helpful.

Liz Smith [00:02:07] And now we're actually targeting certain areas that that cranes are expanding into, such as Port Aransas, where there has been a pair of cranes come to that, to their preserve, three years in a row. And so, of course, that's great during the Whooping Crane Festival as well.

Liz Smith [00:02:27] But more importantly, you know, it's showing that it's not just that they occur there, but they they are there virtually all the time and they're feeding there. We're recording these citizen-scientists' videos of them chasing fish around, pulling up plant tubers and eating them, of, you know, consuming, you know, fiddler crabs and, you know, just all of these food items that are important for them, and, and also maintaining the importance of that healthy marsh to, to whooping cranes as they expand.

Liz Smith [00:03:05] So we we do want to target our work from now on in areas that, that may need to understand that this needs to remain for whooping cranes and not, and not be converted to other uses.