Crane counts were conducted across key sites in Cambodia and Vietnam once a month between January and April 2010. The counts are timed to fall in the dry season, when the majority of the crane population aggregates at important feeding sites. Counts are synchronized to occur within a short time period over the entire area. The highest count obtained was 864 cranes. This is the second highest count since the annual census of the South-East Asian population began in 2001.
A maximum of twelve sites were covered within a single count. Of the sites covered, the Ang Trapeang Thmor Sarus Crane Conservation Area in Cambodia held the highest numbers in three of the four months (numbers tend to peak here towards the end of the dry season and the site held 366 cranes in April). The adjacent sites of Kampong Trach (Cambodia) and Phu My (Vietnam) also had high numbers in all months (varying between 140 and 229 on census dates). Other sites which regularly hold over a hundred cranes for short periods of time, usually early in the dry season, are Boeung Prek Lapouv and the Tonle Sap Grasslands, in Cambodia.
Most sites have received some form of official designation as a protected area by the governments of Cambodia and Vietnam and the Wildlife Conservation Society-Cambodia Program, BirdLife in Indochina and the International Crane Foundation-Vietnam Program have ongoing conservation projects targeting Sarus Cranes. Click here for the full report.