Cranes of the World: References

The following list of more than 400 references is by no means a complete bibliography of cranes, but does include a few titles that for various reasons were not specifically cited in the text. Walkinshaw\u27s (1973) monograph contains a large number of citations not found in the present list, and he additionally has recently (1981c) updated and supplemented his earlier bibliography. All told, his two citation lists include nearly 2,500 citations. Nearly 40 percent of the 1973 list deals with the whooping crane, 20 percent with the sandhill crane, 15 percent with the Eurasian crane, and 8 percent with the Australian crane. Each of the remaining nine species individually comprise no more than 4 percent of the citations, and the Siberian, Japanese, white-naped, demoiselle, and hooded cranes each make up no more than 1 percent. It is thus apparent that at least the English literature on cranes is strongly biased toward the whooping and sandhill cranes, and that many fundamental studies remain to be undertaken on the majority of the cranes of the world. It is especially unfortunate that the literature on four of the world\u27s endangered or vulnerable species (Siberian, Japanese, whitenaped, and hooded) is still so scanty, considering the importance of a proper understanding of their biology and management if they are to be preserved from extinction