Twenty whooping cranes
began their ultralight-led flight from the Necedah National
Wildlife Refuge in Wisconsin Friday – the fifth generation of
birds taking part in a landmark reintroduction effort sponsored by
the Whooping Crane Eastern Partnership.
The Whooping Crane Eastern Partnership (WCEP), an international
coalition of public and private groups, is organizing the effort to
reintroduce this highly imperilled species in eastern North
America, which was a part of its historic range. There are now 42
migratory whooping cranes in the wild in eastern North America.
At about 8 a.m., after being delayed for a short time by ground
fog, four ultralight aircraft and 20 juvenile whooping cranes took
to the air for the first leg of the 1,228-mile journey to the
birds’ wintering habitat at the Chassahowitzka National
Wildlife Refuge along Florida's Gulf Coast.
Fourteen of the birds followed the aircraft and landed at the
first stopover site after about 30 minutes. Four birds returned to
the refuge and will be crated and transported by van to the
stopover site. As of 9:15 a.m., the two remaining birds had landed
in the area and were being tracked by WCEP crew members.
A new stopover site this year, just eight miles from the Necedah
refuge in Juneau County, proved valuable as the air aloft was
rough, making a longer first leg of the migration a difficult
prospect.
In 2001, project partner Operation Migration’s pilots led
the first whooping crane chicks, conditioned to follow their
ultralight surrogates south from Necedah NWR to Chassahowitzka NWR
on Florida’s Gulf Coast. Each subsequent year, WCEP
biologists and pilots conditioned and guided additional groups of
juvenile cranes to Chassahowitzka NWR.
The whooping crane chicks that take part in the reintroduction
project are hatched at the U.S. Geological Survey’s Patuxent
Wildlife Research Center in Laurel, Maryland. There, the young
cranes are introduced to ultralight aircraft and raised in
isolation from humans. To ensure the impressionable cranes remain
wild, project biologists and pilots adhere to a strict no-talking
rule, broadcast recorded crane calls and wear costumes designed to
mask the human form whenever they are around the cranes.
New classes of cranes are transported to Necedah NWR each June
to begin a summer of conditioning behind the ultralights to prepare
them for their fall migration. Pilots lead the birds on gradually
longer training flights at the refuge throughout the summer until
the young cranes are deemed ready to follow the aircraft along the
migration route.
Graduated classes of whoopers spend much of their time during
the summer in central Wisconsin where they use areas on or near the
Necedah and Horicon national wildlife refuges, as well as various
state and private lands.
Project staff from the International Crane Foundation and the
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service track and monitor southbound cranes
in an effort to learn as much as possible about their unassisted
journeys and the habitat choices they make along the way. In the
spring, the ICF and FWS biologists actively track the cranes as
they make their way back north, and continue to monitor the birds,
with the assistance of Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources
biologists, while the whooping cranes are in their summer
locations.
Whooping cranes were on the verge of extinction in the 1940s.
Today, there are only about 300 birds in the wild. Aside from the
42 Wisconsin-Florida birds, the only other migrating population of
whooping cranes nests at the Wood Buffalo National Park in the
Northwest Territories of Canada and winters at the Aransas National
Wildlife Refuge on the Texas Gulf Coast. A non-migrating flock of
approximately 90 birds lives year-round in the central Florida
Kissimmee region.
Whooping cranes, named for their loud and penetrating unison
calls, live and breed in wetland areas, where they feed on crabs,
clams, frogs and aquatic plants. They are distinctive animals,
standing five feet tall, with white bodies, black wing tips and red
crowns on their heads.
WCEP asks anyone who encounters a whooping crane in the wild to
please give them the respect and distance they need. Do not
approach birds on foot within 600 feet; try to remain in your
vehicle; do not approach in a vehicle within 600 feet or, if on a
public road, within 300 feet. Also, please remain concealed and do
not speak loudly enough that the birds can hear you. Finally, do
not trespass on private property in an attempt to view whooping
cranes.
Whooping Crane Eastern Partnership founding members include the
International Crane Foundation, Operation Migration Inc., Wisconsin
Department of Natural Resources, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service,
the U.S. Geological Survey’s Patuxent Wildlife Research
Center and National Wildlife Health Center, the National Fish and
Wildlife Foundation, the Natural Resources Foundation of Wisconsin,
and the International Whooping Crane Recovery Team.
Many other flyway states, provinces, private individuals and
conservation groups have joined forces with and support WCEP by
donating resources, funding and personnel. More than 60 percent of
the project’s estimated $1.8 million annual budget comes from
private sources in the form of grants, public donations and
corporate sponsors.