Sciences de la volaille, de la pêche et de la faune
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Molecular Sexing of Sarus Crane (Grus antigone) Using Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) Technique in Chitwan National Park (CNP), Nepal and Its Conservation Implications

Prakriti Kandel*, Janardan Dev Joshi, Lasta Shrestha, Amir Sadaula, Babu Ram Lamichhane, Subodh Kumar Upadhyaya, Chiranjibi Prasad Pokheral, Ram Chandra Kandel, Bed Kumar Dhakal, Haribhadra Acharya

Adults of many bird species exhibit morphological distinctions between sexes. However, sex determination of monomorphic bird species on the basis of physical appearance is difficult. Molecular sexing with an appropriate primer pair is widely adopted to determine the sex of monomorphic birds. Sarus crane is one such endangered monomorphic bird whose sex can be identified using P2/ZW common primer pair or P2/W specific primer pair. We identified the sex of a Sarus crane rescued at CNP through molecular sexing, based on size differences between introns of the CHD gene on the Z and W sex chromosomes. The rescued bird was identified as male and sent to central zoo for pairing with an already existing female there. This was a very crucial step in avian wildlife conservation and for captive breeding management in the zoo. PCR based sex identification is an easy, accurate, sensitive, feasible, and highly approved method to perform molecular sexing of the rescued monomorphic birds.