By Dan Klepal
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Red-crowned cranes live primarily in Russia and China, but they don't get their name from any political ideology.

Endangered red-crowned cranes have their say Wednesday at the Cincinnati Zoo. (Jeff Swinger photo) | ZOOM |

They are the second-most endangered crane in the world - only about 2,000 of the animals are known to survive in the wild. The Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden is helping increase those numbers, along with a handful of other zoos in the United States.

Cincinnati's zoo successfully bred two of the cranes and last month had the resulting egg shipped to the Khinganski Nature Reserve in the Amur region of Russia, on the border with China.

That egg is one of 22 sent to the reserve from zoos across the nation this year. Five eggs have been produced at the Cincinnati Zoo's off-site breeding facility in the past three years.

Dave Oehler, avian conservation program manager at the zoo, said the birds are important for a host of reasons.

"The bird represents a vast area of habitat that needs to be protected, so if you protect them you're protecting a lot of species," he said.

Red-crowned cranes pair for life and display a spectacular courtship dance during the breeding season from March to July. Two eggs are laid each time and are incubated alternately by each parent bird for 30 days. After hatching, the growth of chicks is rapid to make them capable of accompanying their parents on the long migrations, usually to Japan or the Korean Peninsula.

The birds also are important in Asian culture, where they symbolize long life, good luck, happiness and are often shown in folk art carrying souls of the dead to heaven.

But the cranes are being elbowed out of places to live. In addition to destruction of wetlands, many new villages are sprouting up in wetlands previously occupied only by wildlife. That has driven the cranes away.

However, biologists on the reserve have found that birds raised in captivity will settle near populated villages.

E-mail dklepal@enquirer.com