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Spotlight on Winter Monitoring and Tracking

The Whooping Crane Class of 2008 at Chassahowitzka and St. Marks National Wildlife Refuges

Management and protection of the whooping cranes on their Florida wintering grounds takes a dedicated team of WCEP members from the International Crane Foundation, Operation Migration and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Once the birds arrive at their wintering locations, they are placed into top-netted pens until health checks are completed. For the remainder of the winter, they are free to fly in and out of a larger pen. During the day, the birds oftentimes explore outside of the enclosure, foraging for food and exploring their surroundings, but for safety, return to roost on the man-made oyster bar inside the pen at night.

In the evening, the winter management team uses a loud Whooping crane voice recording to call the birds back into the pen. “Some evenings it can take more than three hours to round up the birds and get them to the safety of the pen,” said Eva Szyszkoski, International Crane Foundation, a member of the WCEP winter management team at Chassahowitzka NWR. Usually the roost check takes around two hours.

The winter management team is also responsible for bringing out fresh water and food to be stored and dispensed from barrels.

“Once they are let out into the release pen it becomes difficult to see exactly what natural food they are eating or, more importantly, what they are missing,” said Joe Duff, Operation Migration pilot. “So we get some crab and show them how to break the shell and find the good part. It doesn’t take long before they catch on and start to take advantage of all that is there for them.” Duff and other WCEP partners that work one-on-one with the birds must wear a costume that prevents the cranes from getting attached to people.

In early winter, the birds are checked on twice a day to check water levels, food, and observe the birds’ behavior, and to ensure they are all inside the pen at roost time.

“After the chicks were released from the pen we would walk them to the oyster bar every evening to teach them where to roost,” said Bev Paulan, Operation Migration, a member of the WCEP winter management team at St. Marks NWR.

In late winter, the birds are checked once a day at roost time. “We try to spend as little amount of time with them as possible, around 10-15 minutes every other day,” Eva said. As spring approaches, the team also monitors behavior that may indicate the birds are ready to start migrating northward.

WCEP winter management crew with the International Crane Foundation and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service are also part of the WCEP tracking team, which is responsible for monitoring all of the migratory whooping cranes currently wintering in Florida that were part of previous ultralight and Direct Autumn Release migrations. Often times the tracking team must coordinate with landowners for access to their property to monitor the birds. Some previously released cranes winter in other states outside of Florida, including Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, and South Carolina, so trackers often travel long distances during the winter to track the birds. The tracking team also processes public sightings of wintering migratory whoopers. To submit a report of your sighting, visit http://www.fws.gov/midwest/whoopingcrane/sightings/sightingform.cfm.

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