Fourteen
ultra-light-led migrating whooping cranes have arrived in their Florida wintering grounds after traveling more than 1,200
miles from Necedah National Wildlife Refuge in Wisconsin. Half of
flock arrived on Jan. 17 at St. Marks National Wildlife, 25 miles south of Tallahassee along the
Gulf Coast of Florida. The other half
continued south to Chassahowitzka NWR, 65 miles north of St. Petersburg, arriving on Jan. 23. "This
Class of 2008 brings another exciting year for this great partnership and it
gets us one step closer to seeing the recovery of this magnificent species,”
said Keith Ramos, acting refuge manager at Chassahowitzka NWR. “The staff
at Chassahowitzka NWR worked hard to make sure that everything was ready for
the arrival of the birds. We are very excited to be a part of this
project and to be able to share our excitement with our new partners at the St.
Marks NWR." “St.
Marks has been anticipating the birds’ arrival for months, and the outpouring
of community support around Wakulla and Leon counties has been phenomenal,”
said Terry Peacock, refuge manager at St. Marks NWR. “We are thankful for the
help of all of our volunteers who have assisted with pen set-up and helped with
other preparations around the refuge.” This is the eighth year the Whooping Crane Eastern
Partnership, an international, public-private coalition, has conducted the
ultralight project to reintroduce this endangered species in eastern North America. Each fall, pilots from the nonprofit Operation
Migration, a WCEP partner, lead a new generation of cranes behind their
ultralight aircraft to Florida.
The cranes make the return flight to the Upper Midwest
on their own in the spring. This year's migration began from Necedah NWR on Oct. 17,
with four ultralight aircraft leading the birds southward. To help speed the
migration and improve safety for the birds and the pilots, the team took a new
route this year. Pilots lead the birds around rather than over the Appalachian
Mountains, taking them through the state of Alabama for the first time. The
ultralight-led flock also passed through Wisconsin,
Illinois, Kentucky,
Tennessee, and Georgia
before crossing the Florida
border. Seventy-three migratory whooping cranes now exist in the
wild in eastern North America — including the first whooping crane chick to
hatch in the wild in Wisconsin
in more than a century. Many of these cranes have settled into their
wintering locations in parts of the Southeast, including Georgia, Alabama,
South Carolina, Tennessee,
and Florida.
State partners from Wisconsin, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama and Georgia
provided strong support throughout the migration. Operation Migration's pilots led the project’s first
whooping crane chicks from Necedah NWR to Chassahowitzka NWR in 2001.
Each subsequent year, biologists and pilots have conditioned and guided
additional groups of juvenile cranes to Chassahowitzka. The USGS Patuxent Wildlife
Research Center
in Maryland
hatches and rears the whooping crane chicks that take part in the
reintroduction project. The center introduces the young cranes to ultralight
aircraft and raises them 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. Each June, the center ships a new class of cranes to Necedah
NWR. Upon their arrival, the cranes 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 ready to follow the aircraft along the migration
route. In October, International Crane Foundation and U.S. Fish
and Wildlife Service biologists also released six additional chicks into the company
of older birds at Necedah NWR. This technique, “direct autumn release,” places chicks
with adult whoopers or sandhill cranes so they can learn a fall migration route
from the older birds. Biologists are using the technique to complement the success
of the ultralight-led migrations. They rear the chicks for direct autumn
release in the field and release them with older birds after the chicks
fledged, or learned to fly. This method of reintroduction has undergone
extensive testing and has been successful with sandhill cranes. But it remains
to be seen if it will work with whooping cranes or with mixed species. Most of the project’s whooping cranes spend the summer in
central Wisconsin,
where they use areas on the Necedah NWR, as well as various state and private
lands. Cranes taking part in the project have also spent time in Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois, Michigan and
other upper Midwest states. Whooping cranes were on the verge of extinction in the
1940s. Today, only about 500 birds exist, 350 of them in the wild. Aside from
the 73 Wisconsin-Florida birds, the original 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
Coast. The following organizations are founding members of the Whooping
Crane Eastern Partnership: 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 $1.6 million annual budget comes from private sources in the form of
grants, public donations and corporate sponsorship. For information on the USFWS National Wildlife Refuges
involved in this project, visit the following link: St. Marks NWR: http://www.fws.gov/saintmarks/. Chassahowitzka NWR: http://www.fws.gov/chassahowitzka/ Necedah
National Wildlife Refuge: http://www.fws.gov/midwest/necedah/ For more information on the whooping crane project, its
partners and how you can help, visit the WCEP Web site at http://www.bringbackthecranes.org.
A Wisconsin Whooping Crane Management Plan that describes project goals and
management and monitoring strategies shared and implemented by the partners is online
at: http://dnr.wi.gov/org/land/er/birds/wcrane/wcraneplan.htm. :
A nonmigrating flock of approximately 30 birds lives year-round in central Florida. The
remaining 150 whooping cranes are in captivity in breeding facilities and zoos
around North America.
Whooping cranes, who earned the name for their loud and penetrating unison
calls, live and breed in wetland areas, where they feed on crabs, clams, frogs
and seeds. They are distinctive animals, standing five feet tall, with white
bodies, black wing tips and red crowns on their heads.
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