I’ve just returned from my first genuine expedition to track down and witness Cranes, an exhilarating five days in western Victoria. Here roam the Brolgas, more specifically the southern population. This population is classified as Vulnerable. My desk research had made it clear that we don’t know how many southern Brolgas there are, with estimates ranging from 500 to 1,000. My trip brought home to me that we don’t really know where they are at any one moment.
Contrast that with the map above (from the Whooping Crane Eastern Partnership website), which shows that America’s Whooping Cranes, even more precarious with a classification of Endangered, are tracked minutely. The table reveals that there are, to a great deal of precision, 826 Whooping Cranes. Moreover, the map shows that the Eastern Migratory subsection of those 826, exactly 85 birds, is tracked (via various means) almost exactly. The map gives the locations, logged in the last two months, of about 80 birds (I manually counted them).
What a difference in exactitude and, therefore, in human focus on one species versus another! My mind whirls with the implications.