THE WHOOPING CRANE REPORT: 15
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Photo by USFWS
Photo by USFWS
Photo by USFWS Photo by USGS |
Who Decides What's
Best for the Birds?
What's the best diet for a whooping crane? How much room does it need in captivity to breed? How can you safely ship a whooper from one state to another? At what age can you safely ship a chick? What are the best techniques to use in rearing a whooper chick for release into the wild? How best to teach it to migrate? What are the future ramifications for an introduced population with a limited gene pool? How might West Nile Virus affect reintroduction plans? For the institutions, organizations, and individuals involved in keeping whoopers, breeding them successfully, and producing healthy chicks capable of surviving in the wild, the questions are endless. That's why, every year, representatives from these institutions and their many partner organizations come together to discuss these and other topics essential to the recovery of the rarest of cranes. Because spring, summer, and fall are the busiest time for captive crane facilities and field and research biologists as well, the only time available for these critical planning meetings is in the winter. This year found us traveling to Ottawa, Canada, in January to meet with our partners and friends for four intense days of information sharing that would help shape the coming year. The first two days are the captive management meetings. Institutions who have captive whooping cranes share reports and discuss their past season, and the different experiences they had, both successes and failures. Everything is viewed as an opportunity to learn. The first whoopers were bred at the Audubon Zoo starting in 1950 and produced eight chicks over the next 20 years. We, at Patuxent, produced our first chick in 1975. The shared feeling is that we have barely scratched the surface in what can be learned about this complex bird. Opportunities for research are discussed, as well as shared projects that might improve our knowledge. The next two days are the Whooping Crane Recovery Team meetings. The Whooping Crane Coordinators from the Canadian Wildlife Service and the US Fish and Wildlife Service and 8 other biologists (4 from Canada and 4 from the United States) who are members of the WC Recovery Team discuss the results of the captive management meetings, evaluate their recommendations, discuss reports and research findings relevant to the wild flock and the release flocks, and make decisions that will guide the recovery effort for the upcoming year. The meetings are an opportunity to share knowledge and problems openly as everyone works cooperatively to find solutions that will aid in the recovery effort. The meetings give people a chance to talk face-to-face, one-on-one, in small groups, and in a large collective gathering. Focus groups are formed to concentrate on specific issues or to make recommendations about specific problems. Biologists, geneticists, veterinarians, statisticians, zoo curators, technicians, administrators, representatives of private organizations, pilots, media representatives, and other individuals involved in captive management and release work all participate. Everyone has the opportunity to talk, share ideas, ask questions. The atmosphere is one of a joint effort as everyone focuses on one far-reaching goal: the recovery of the whooping crane. Some of the institutions and organizations that participate in the meetings besides USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center are: The Canadian Wildlife Service (our hosts this year), the US Fish and Wildlife Service, The Whooping Crane Eastern Partnership, Operation Migration Inc., the International Crane Foundation, the Calgary Zoo, Audubon Center for Research of Endangered Species (ACRES) and the Audubon Freeport McMoran Species Survival Center (AFMSSC), the San Antonio Zoo, the Lowry Park Zoo, the Whooping Crane Conservation Association, and the International Whooping Crane Recovery Team. Please check our site on March 14 for a web page update! |
Patuxent Crane Videos --To see these videos, you will need to install the free Real Player application. Go to the Real Player link, above, and make sure you select Download Free Real Player. The .rm extension on the files indicates a RealVideo file. The rate with which you connect with our system can affect the quality of the video transmission. Low connectivity rates caused by noisy phone lines or heavy internet traffic may make the video hard to view. If that happens, try during a less busy time and the video may transmit better. Some systems may not have the appropriate hardware or internet connection to handle videos so we provide the still-photos on the left, that were taken directly from the videos. These photos show some of the scenes from the video, so users who cannot access the video can still experience the story. (Download
Free RealPlayer (now called RealOne Player)) Whooping Crane Videos: See Report 12 for more info on dancing
cranes: See Report 11 for more info on
smelt-feeding: See Report 10 for more info on pre-flight
training: See Report
8 for more info on chicks feeding: |
Click here to ask questions about Patuxent's whooping crane program. Please check our site on March 14 for a web page update!
Whooping Crane Reports7 |
15 |
Hatch Day (Click on numbered links to view all other egg (negative numbers) and chick days).