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WHOOPING
CRANE EASTERN PARTNERSHIP
News Release
Fifth Group of Endangered Whooping Cranes
Depart on Ultralight-guided Flight to Florida
Phone: 612-713-5311
Fax: 612-713-5280
Email: rachel_levin@fws.gov
______________________
FOR IMMEDIATE
RELEASE
Contacts:
Chuck Underwood,
USFWS Southeast, October 14, 2005 904-232-2580, x109
WCEP 05-02 Rachel F. Levin, USFWS Midwest, 612-713-5311
Twenty whooping
cranes began their ultralight-led flight from the Necedah National Wildlife
Refuge in Wisconsin today – the fifth generation of birds taking
part in a landmark reintroduction effort sponsored by the Whooping Crane
Eastern Partnership.
The Whooping
Crane Eastern Partnership (WCEP), an international coalition of public
and private groups, is organizing the effort to reintroduce this highly
imperilled species in eastern North America, which was a part of its historic
range. There are now 42 migratory whooping cranes in the wild in eastern
North America.
At about
8 a.m., after being delayed for a short time by ground fog, four ultralight
aircraft and 20 juvenile whooping cranes took to the air for the first
leg of the 1,228-mile journey to the birds’ wintering habitat at
the Chassahowitzka National Wildlife Refuge along Florida's Gulf Coast.
Fourteen
of the birds followed the aircraft and landed at the first stopover site
after about 30 minutes. Four birds returned to the refuge and will be
crated and transported by van to the stopover site. As of 9:15 a.m., the
two remaining birds had landed in the area and were being tracked by WCEP
crew members.
A new stopover
site this year, just eight miles from the Necedah refuge in Juneau County,
proved valuable as the air aloft was rough, making a longer first leg
of the migration a difficult prospect.
In 2001,
project partner Operation Migration’s pilots led the first whooping
crane chicks, conditioned to follow their ultralight surrogates south
from Necedah NWR to Chassahowitzka NWR on Florida’s Gulf Coast. Each
subsequent year, WCEP biologists and pilots conditioned and guided additional
groups of juvenile cranes to Chassahowitzka NWR.
The whooping
crane chicks that take part in the reintroduction project are hatched
at the U.S. Geological Survey’s Patuxent Wildlife Research Center
in Laurel, Maryland. There, the young cranes are introduced to ultralight
aircraft and raised 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.
New classes
of cranes are transported to Necedah NWR each June to 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 deemed ready to follow
the aircraft along the migration route.
Graduated
classes of whoopers spend much of their time during the summer in central
Wisconsin where they use areas on or near the Necedah and Horicon national
wildlife refuges, as well as various state and private lands.
Project staff
from the International Crane Foundation and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service track and monitor southbound cranes in an effort to learn as much
as possible about their unassisted journeys and the habitat choices they
make along the way. In the spring, the ICF and FWS biologists actively
track the cranes as they make their way back north, and continue to monitor
the birds, with the assistance of Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources
biologists, while the whooping cranes are in their summer locations.
Whooping
cranes were on the verge of extinction in the 1940s. Today, there are
only about 300 birds in the wild. Aside from the 42 Wisconsin-Florida
birds, the only other migrating 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 Gulf
Coast. A non-migrating flock of approximately 90 birds lives year-round
in the central Florida Kissimmee region.
Whooping
cranes, named for their loud and penetrating unison calls, live and breed
in wetland areas, where they feed on crabs, clams, frogs and aquatic plants.
They are distinctive animals, standing five feet tall, with white bodies,
black wing tips and red crowns on their heads.
WCEP asks
anyone who encounters a whooping crane in the wild to please give them
the respect and distance they need. Do not approach birds on foot within
600 feet; try to remain in your vehicle; do not approach in a vehicle
within 600 feet or, if on a public road, within 300 feet. Also, please
remain concealed and do not speak loudly enough that the birds can hear
you. Finally, do not trespass on private property in an attempt to view
whooping cranes.
Whooping
Crane Eastern Partnership founding members include 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 WCEP by donating resources, funding
and personnel. More than 60 percent of the project’s estimated $1.8
million annual budget comes from private sources in the form of grants,
public donations and corporate sponsors.
As the majority
of support for this project comes from private sources, individual contributions
are always welcome. Tax-exempt donations may be sent to any of the private
non-profit organizations in the partnership. For more information on the
project, its partners, and how you can help, visit the WCEP website at
www.bringbackthecranes.org.
-WCEP-
For more
information on the project, its partners and how you can help, visit the
WCEP website at http://www.bringbackthecranes.org
Educators
and students are encouraged to visit Journey North for information and
curriculum materials related to the whooping crane project: http://www.learner.org/jnorth/crane/index.html
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