{"id":106039,"date":"2025-08-29T19:00:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-29T19:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/106039\/"},"modified":"2025-08-29T19:00:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-29T19:00:07","slug":"siberian-crane-back-from-the-brink","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/106039\/","title":{"rendered":"Siberian crane: Back from the brink"},"content":{"rendered":"

Editor’s Note: Call to Earth is a CNN editorial series committed to reporting on the environmental challenges facing our planet, together with the solutions. Rolex\u2019s Perpetual Planet Initiative<\/a> has partnered with CNN to drive awareness and education around key sustainability issues and to inspire positive action.<\/p>\n

In the wetlands of northern Iran, near the Caspian Sea, a lone Siberian crane used to spend the winter. His name was Omid, Persian for \u201chope,\u201d and he was thought to be the last surviving wild Siberian crane in the western population, which migrates from western Siberia to India and Iran. <\/p>\n

In 2022, the International Crane Foundation (ICF) released a captive-bred Siberian crane named Roya, Persian for \u201cdream,\u201d into Omid\u2019s breeding grounds in Siberia in the hope that he would teach her the ancient migration route and stopover sites. But Omid has been missing since 2023. Rich Beilfuss, CEO of the ICF, which works to protect the Siberian crane, said there might still be a bird in Iran, but the western population of Siberian cranes is now “functionally extinct,\u201d impacted by hunting and development.<\/p>\n

The species is classified as critically endangered<\/a> and its survival now depends solely on its eastern populations. Fortunately, thanks to conservation efforts, these are thriving. According to the ICF, in 2015, their numbers were estimated at less than 3,500 birds. Now, it believes there are almost 7,000.<\/p>\n

Exact numbers are difficult to determine \u2013 the eastern population, which migrates from Arctic Russia to China, breeds in wetlands in the far north of Siberia, making access for surveys almost impossible, according to Beilfuss. However, he remains positive about its future: \u201cthe trend over time is clear \u2013 there are more and more birds coming back.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Editor’s Note: Call to Earth is a CNN editorial series committed to reporting on the environmental challenges facing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":106040,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[49,48,66,323],"class_list":{"0":"post-106039","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-science","11":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106039","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106039"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106039\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/106040"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}