Northern migration patterns and winter habitat use of hooded cranes (Grus monacha) in Suncheon Bay, South Korea

Understanding individual-level spatial dynamics of the Vulnerable Hooded Crane (Grus monacha) remains limited, especially regarding fine-scale winter habitat use and north migration from South Korea. This lack of data constrains conservation planning across the East Asian Flyway. The five Hooded Cranes were GPS-tagged in Suncheon Bay, South Korea, and tracked their movements from wintering to breeding grounds. Spatial analyses included habitat utilization, day-night partitioning, activity range estimation (MCP and KDE), and migration route with stopover characterization. Hooded Cranes exhibited strong diel habitat partitioning: foraging in seasonally flooded field on day and roosting on mudflats at night. Activity ranges computed within the Suncheon complex despite eight-fold differences among individuals in core area size. Northern migration followed a narrow Yellow Sea corridor with 5–7 stopover sites, notably in reclaimed estuaries like Saemangeum, Cheonsu Bay, with final breeding locations in the Russian Far East. Results suggest managing paddy fields and mudflats as a single ecological unit, protecting key stopover sites, and testing spatially dispersed supplementary feeding to buffer late-winter shortages. This study provides the fine-scale linkage between winter habitat use and migration in Hooded Cranes.