As the sun came up, 13 Thai Eastern Sarus cranes were released into the wild, noisily flapping over a rippling reservoir in northeastern Thailand, the latest effort to revive the almost-extinct species in the kingdom.

More commonly known as Thai cranes, the birds nearly disappeared from Thailand roughly 50 years ago -- they were last spotted in the wild in 1968 -- before a collaboration between the Thai government, Nakhon Ratchasima Zoo and United Nations to save them.