Specific Comments on Platte River Draft EIS

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tinued Based on radio-tracking observations, the tende wetlands as stopover roosts is apparent in Nebra: The flyway. Among the 27 migratory flight passe and adults) monitored through the state of Neb 1981-1984, no stopovers were observed along the icy of migrant whooping cranes to select small :a as well as else where along the U.S. portion of by individual birds (including juvenile, subadults, aska during the nine radio-tracking efforts from 'latte River. Radio-tracking studies have provided empirical proof that migrant birds are not dependent on specific stopover sites along the flyway. Ra her, whooping cranes exhibit a nontraditional (opportunistic) habitat selection strategy along th flyway which is of direct survival advantage in that it allays freedom of response to the vario s hazards and rigors of migration (e.g., severe weather, fatigue and hunger). Moreover, this st ategy enables the species to adjust to changing habitat conditions within the migration corridor s influenced by natural and human factors (e.g., climate-induced fluctuations in water levels, s asonal avail ability of intermittent or ephemeral wetlands, and changing water- and land-use ap lications). WHOOPING CRANE USE OF THE PLATTEIRIVER Aistorical Record (Section 3.1): The Service's riginal proposed determination of the Platte River critical habitat zone on December 16, 1975 was b sed on the premise that this river and its environs constituted the `most valuable part" of the whoopi g cranes entire migration route. The rationale was that 1) there were more old records of whooping crane sightings along the `Big Bend" area of the Platte River than anywhere else along the flyway and 2) confirmed sightings during the five years preceding the proposed determination indicated co tinued heavy use of the area. The preponderance of early records along the I Swenk, a professor at the University of Nebraska, actively solicited and compiled reports of whool and from 1934-1944, respectively. The interes knowledge of the whooping crane's migrator observation efforts were not being coordinated at disproportionate number of sightings along the K atte River was due to the efforts of Myron H. nd A.M. Brooking of the Hastings Museum, who ig crane sightings in Nebraska from 1912-1933, generated by these researchers at a time when habits was fragmentary - and when similar her locations along the flyway - thus resulted in a e River prior to 1950. While conducting research on the species durinj Audubon Society thoroughly reevaluated the sigh the process, Allen discovered a substantial dispari cranes reported in Nebraska and the species' st, where it had become rare after 1912. In some Nebraska exceeded the species' total populatioi grounds. A significant consequence of this problem increase in the whooping crane population - species" - during a period when the population the 1940`s, Robert Porter Allen of the National ngs records compiled by Swenk and Brooking. In ? between the large numbers of migrant whooping us at wintering grounds in Texas and Louisiana ases, he noted that individual flocks sighted in size as determined from counts on the winter that the Nebraska records falsely reflected an rpreted by Swenk as a"distinct recovery of the experiencing serious decline. A-