Huize Black-necked Crane Nature Reserve Black-necked Cranes Wintering Habitat Change And Food

Wild animal habitat is the sum to of various environmental resources on which wild animals maintain their normal life activities. In recent decades, with the increasing scope of human activities and the changes of land use / cover,wild animal habitat was destructed.Based on the remote sensing image, geographic information system technology, and field survey, this paper focused on the land use change and its impact on the habitat of the wintering Black-necked Crane (Grus nigricollis) as well as food available in different habitat types in the Huize Black-necked Crane National Nature Reserve. The main results were as follows.1. In the nature reserve, the basic wintering range of geographical space is not changed obviously since 1992, although the population of the wintering black-necked crane has increased significantly;2. The land use change varied obviously in the studied two districts of the reserve from 1992 to 2006. In the Daqiao district, the area of woodlands and shrubs decreased substantially, most of them were converted to farmlands, and that of farmlands increased; in the Changhai district, the areas of woodlands and shrubs decreased and that of farmlands and grasslands increased. This indicated the fact that human population growth and economic development drove the conversion of woodland and shrubs into farmlands. The changes of other habitant were depended on the local landuse policy such as reservoirs building, afforestation, wetlands restore, grass planting.3. The lack-necked cranes foraged mainly on farmlands in the reserve. The other kinds of habitat of the black-necked crane were degenerated, which made the birds departed from the marsh to a new habitat, some of them left the reserve districts. This indicated the instable behaviour of black-necked cranes wintering under human disturbance.4. The black-necked cranes have switched their night habitat from the area of shallow waters and marshes to unsheltered and unpopulated reservoir muddy wetland or dry slopes far from water, indicating the change of the crane in order to adapt to the changeable environments. 5. The black-necked cranes are living primarily on potatoes, rapeseeds, grass roots, insects, turnips, as well as wheat, buckwheat and purple flower vetch. In arious habitat types, Like farmland, grassland, swamp meadow, wetlands and bare land , the food availability was highest in farmland and wetlands.