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Article: As Japan's wetlands are lost, cranes lose out Now massed in tiny areas, they depend on humans for food
- Article from:
- The Boston Globe (Boston, MA)
- Article date:
- March 7, 1994
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright 1994 The Boston Globe. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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IZUMI, Japan -- When the winter dawn breaks over the dark wooded
mountains that crowd the seacoast here, it sets off the sort of din
that might be created if all the seagulls of Massachusetts Bay were
to convene at once at Plymouth Rock.
First light reveals the source: A handful of rice paddies carved
from the realm of the sea in the years after World War II, now
throbbing with thousands of tall, indistinct gray forms.
The first strong sunbeams set off a blaze in orange eyes, and
ignite brilliant patches of scarlet, white and powder-blue feathers.
Suddenly the air is full, not with the thousand cranes that symbolize
rare happiness in traditional Japanese culture, but with ten
thousand, one ...