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2001 Fall Whooping Crane Migration

Lift Off and Recovery of a Wayward Crane!

Necedah National Wildlife Refuge - Oct. 17, 2001

Necedah National Wildlife Refuge, Necedah, Wisconsin – At 7:15 A.M. central daylight time, a group of eight whooping cranes left the ground following two ultralight aircraft on the first leg of a human-led migration that will teach them a route to wintering grounds at Chassahowitzka National Wildlife Refuge in Florida. This is the first group of what wildlife biologists, crane experts and pilots hope will become a migrating flock of whooping cranes in eastern North America.

Shortly after take off one crane, known as number four, dropped out of the flight formation and proceeded to lead tracking and recovery teams on a day-long chase across Adams and Juneau counties. The following is a chronology of the days events.

7:15 A.M. - Take off from Necedah National Wildlife Refuge.

7:30 A.M. - First report by radio that #4 had dropped out and landed approximately eight miles south of the refuge along the western shore of Castle Rock Lake. The report included a position fix from a chase aircraft flown by Operation Migration's Bill Lishman.

8:00 - 10:00 A.M. – Crane biologist, Richard Urbanek, drove to the position fix and scanned the area with his truck-mounted directional radio antenna, attempting to pick up the signal from a transmitter each crane in the study wears on its leg. Richard was unable to hear anything at that spot and began to work his way back toward the refuge take off site, monitoring the radio as he went.

10:20 A.M. – Second and third tracking vehicles with Barry Hartup and Sarah Zimorski, both from International Crane Foundation, also began searching for the crane's signal along the eastern shore of the lake.

"I knew all the transmitters were working when the birds left ," said Urbanek. "Not finding the bird where the pilots said it dropped out meant it probably took off again right after landing, before we could get there. The transmitters only have about a three mile range. If the bird has moved beyond that or is in a low spot, we can have a difficult time picking up the signal."

11:27 A.M. – From opposite sides of Castle Rock Lake both Urbanek and Hartup, who was now at Quincy Bluff, picked up a weak signal that appeared to come from the area near where the crane was last seen. Following the signal, Urbanek headed down a dirt road to the lake shore hoping for a visual sighting.

11:40 A.M. – No visual sighting but the directional antenna indicated that the bird was moving to the north. Urbanek decided to cross over to the east side of the lake as it appeared the bird had crossed the water. Hartup called Zimorski to join him and rendevous with Urbanek.

1:14 P.M. – Urbanek met up with Hartup/Zimorski at Castle Rock County Park and the two crews continued to scan the skies with binoculars and monitor the directional radio receiver.

"The direction of the signal kept changing," said Hartup. "This indicated the bird was in the air, riding thermals in an upward spiral. We couldn't see him, and that was frustrating, but at the same time, he was flying like a wild crane, drifting upward on rising thermals, letting the warm air carry him. This is exactly the way we hope these cranes will fly on their own."

"With the bird in the air, there wasn't much we could do except continue to monitor his signal and wait for him to land," said Urbanek.

2:25 P.M. – Joe Duff, Deke Clark and Rebecca Cohen-Pardo of Operation Migration and Dan Sprague of USGS-Patuxent arrived and almost immediately, the bird's signal began to fade indicating he was descending. The combined tracking team began to move north.

2:39 P.M. --Within a few miles, the signal was lost altogether. After zig-zagging north on dirt and gravel roads without picking up the signal, the team decided to split up again and continue to search for the signal in different areas.

4:00 P.M. – Urbanek returns to Necedah NWF and meets with the OM crew of Duff, Clark and Cohen-Pardo. He picks up a weak signal to the northwest. The other members of the search crew are called and head toward Necedah.

4:30 P.M. – The OM group remains at Necedah, monitoring the signal while Urbanek moves in the direction of the signal hoping to get the bird between him and OM's location. In the meantime, Hartup, Sprague and Zimorski arrive and begin to zero in on the bird's location which is now determined to be along a lakeshore on the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources' Meadow Valley Wildlife Management Area.

5:05 - 5:20 P.M. – Sprague and Zimorski put on crane costumes and with a hand-held radio receiver and a loudspeaker head into dense woods along the lakeshore. The loudspeaker is used to play crane calls and attract the cranes.

"Sarah, Richard and Barry did an excellent job of tracking the bird all day," said Sprague. "They deserve a lot of credit for the eventual recovery of #4.

"Sarah had the radio receiver and was directing us toward the signal. The bird was on the shore of a lake with woods right to the edge of it. We reached the shore near the bird and played a contact call which brought the bird to us. I carefully lifted the bird, Sarah slipped a hood over its head and we carried it out to the road where it was put into a crane- transport box and driven to the landing site where the other cranes were resting overnight."

Bob Manwell: "As a public affairs manager for Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, I've accompanied wildlife biologists tracking wolves, moose, rattlesnakes, turtles and trumpeter swans but this was by far the most exciting search I've participated in. Watching the birds and aircraft depart in the early morning mists, being in the radio- tracking vehicles, glassing the skies and shorelines and finally after an all-day search finding the crane, left me with the incredibly good feeling that I've personally helped this bird and its mates on their journey. A journey that will restore one more piece of our state's natural heritage."

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