A flock of whooping crane chicks arrived by private airplane at central Wisconsins Necedah National Wildlife Refuge June 19. A field team from Operation Migration, Inc., the International Crane Foundation and the U.S. Geological Survey’s Patuxent Wildlife Research Center will spend the summer conditioning the chicks to fly behind ultralight aircraft.
This fall the team will guide the young cranes on their first southern migration, leading them by ultralight over Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee and Georgia before arriving at Chassahowitzka National Wildlife Refuge on Florida’s Gulf coast, the cranes’ winter home.
They will be the third group of juvenile whooping cranes to take part in a project designed to reintroduce a migratory flock of whooping cranes to a portion of their former range in eastern North America. Whooping cranes are among the most endangered birds in North America.
The chicks were flown to Necedah from the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center in Laurel, Md., where they hatched. While the reintroduction project this year will take place with up to 18 cranes, only the 10 oldest crane chicks arrived Thursday. The remaining cranes will be transported later this month to Necedah, one of 540 national wildlife refuges managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
At Patuxent, the whooping cranes are introduced to ultralight aircraft and raised in isolation from humans. To ensure the birds remain wild, project biologists and pilots adhere to a no-talking rule, play recorded crane calls and wear costumes designed to mask the human form whenever they are around the cranes. Biologists from the International Crane Foundation and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will monitor the cranes over the winter and track them next spring during their return migration, which they will undertake unaided by ultralight aircraft.
All but two of the 21 cranes from the 2001 and 2002 flocks returned to Wisconsin on their own this spring. One crane had to be flown by aircraft from Ohio back to Necedah NWR, and another crane remains in north-central Illinois.
The Whooping Crane Eastern Partnership is a consortium of non-profit organizations and government agencies. Founding members are the International Crane Foundation, Operation Migration Inc., Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Geological Survey’s Patuxent Wildlife Research Center and National Wildlife Health Center, International Whooping Crane Recovery Team, National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, and the Natural Resources Foundation of Wisconsin.
Many other flyway states, provinces, private individuals and conservation groups have joined forces with and support the partnership by donating resources, funding and personnel. More than 60 percent of the estimated $1.8 million budget comes from private sources in the form of grants, donations and corporate sponsors.
The Whooping Crane Eastern Partnership thanks Windway Capital Corporation for donating its plane and pilot to transport the cranes.
