My Family

White-Naped Cranes
Grus vipeo

I don't get to see these cousins very often. They live in Asia (map of their range) and are having some trouble on the home front. Their primary breeding grounds are wetlands in Eastern Mongolia. Some of these critical areas have been converted to farmland, others are threatened by drought, while others have been flooded by dams. To make matters worse, many of them stage or winter in and around the Korean demilitarized zone. Talk about looking for trouble!

Fortunately, Mongolia, China, and Russia are working cooperatively to try to protect this vulnerable member of our family, and the Korean government has created a National Monument to protect some of their wintering grounds.