Whooping crane pair at International Crane Foundation, September 2003. USFWS photo by Joel Trick

The Services' Green Bay, Wisconsin, and Jacksonville, Florida, Field Offices recently collaborated with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources to develop a network of Fish and Wildlife Service and State Natural Resource agency contacts to assist in tracking whooping cranes in eastern North America.  This effort established key contacts in all of the states within the eastern U.S. Nonessential Experimental Population area, which includes Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wisconsin.

The Whooping Crane Eastern Partnership has been releasing young whooping cranes since 2001, as part of an ongoing project to reintroduce a migratory population to eastern North America. WCEP currently has an active tracking program with biologists monitoring reintroduced whooping cranes through the use of radio transmitters that all birds carry. Increasingly, however, valuable information about crane locations is being received from members of the public. Enlisting the aid of resource agency personnel in receiving this information and passing it on to the appropriate contact in a timely fashion will help to make these whooping crane observations more valuable to the biologists in the field. As the eastern migratory whooping crane population continues to increase, there is an increasing need to use all available information sources to monitor the population. Engaging and encouraging participation by the public can also be expected to build a stronger constituency and support for this reintroduction project.

Data collected through our network of agency contacts will contribute towards the success of the reintroduction, and may help us to identify important migratory habitat that can be targeted for conservation efforts.