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WHOOPING
CRANE EASTERN PARTNERSHIP
News Release
Fifth Generation of Ultralight-led Whooping Cranes
Reaches Florida Wintering Grounds
PDF
Version
December 13, 2005
Contacts:
Rachel F. Levin, WCEP/USFWS
Midwest Region, (612) 713-5311
Chuck Underwood, WCEP/USFWS
Southeast Region, (904) 910-6254 (cell)
Joan Garland, International Crane Foundation, (608)381-1262 (cell)
Sarah Palmisano, Chassahowitzka
National Wildlife Refuge, (352) 563-2088, x210
Liz Condie, Operation Migration, Inc., (352) 209-6004 (cell)
Nineteen
endangered whooping cranes and their surrogate parents—four ultralight
aircraft—reached Florida’s Gulf coast today after a 61-day trek
of more than 1,100 miles through seven states.
At 9:30 a.m.
Eastern, the cranes and ultralights arrived at their final destination
in Marion County, first flying over a crowd of more than 800 enthusiastic
spectators gathered for the occasion at the Dunnellon Municipal Airport.
These cranes
are the fifth group to be guided by ultralights to Florida from Necedah
National Wildlife Refuge in central Wisconsin. The Whooping Crane Eastern
Partnership (WCEP), an international coalition of public and private organizations,
is conducting this ultralight-led reintroduction project in an effort
to return this highly imperiled species to its historic range in eastern
North America.
With the
conclusion of this year's ultralight-led migration, there are now 64 whooping
cranes in the wild in eastern North America.
This year,
the young cranes ended their first migration at a different location than
in previous years. Instead of being “dropped off” by the ultralight
pilots at the Chassahowitzka National Wildlife Refuge in Citrus County,
the juvenile birds will instead spend the next few weeks at an isolated
location in Marion County.
WCEP project
managers believe this change will prevent wild cranes from harassing juveniles
at the Chassahowitzka site, to which older birds tend to return when they
arrive in Florida.
Holding the
new arrivals off-site for a period of time might allow the older birds
the opportunity to visit Chassahowitzka site, realize no food or fresh
water is available, and then naturally disperse inland. Once the older
birds clear the area the new arrivals could then be moved into the site.
“With
success comes new challenges, and the whooping crane migratory reintroduction
is no different,” said Chassahowitzka NWR manager Jim Kraus.
Staff from
the Southwest Florida Water Management District and the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service prepared a 600-acre site within the 8,200-acre Halpata
Tastanaki Preserve in Marion County as a holding pen location for the
new whooping cranes.
With assistance
from Disney Animal Kingdom, the Jacksonville Zoo and other volunteers,
a two-acre open pen and a half-acre top-netted pen have been constructed
to provide a safe temporary home for the project whooping cranes while
they wait for their older relatives to clear their winter home.
The project
area at the preserve is closed to the public during the project birds'
stay in order to continue the isolation process used to help the birds
adapt to the wild and stay that way.
Refuge staff,
Friends members and volunteers also partnered this year with the Dunnellon/Marion
County Airport and the Yankee Air Force to conduct this year’s arrival
flyover event at the airport.
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 have conditioned and guided
additional groups of juvenile cranes to Chassahowitzka NWR.
This year’s
class of ultralight-led whooping cranes departed from Necedah NWR on Oct.
14.
In addition
to the chicks migrating behind ultralights, WCEP biologists also released
four additional chicks this fall into the company of older birds at Necedah
in the hopes that the chicks would learn the migration route from adult
whoopers.
WCEP is using
this “direct autumn release” technique to complement the known
success of the ultralight-led migrations. Chicks for direct autumn release
will be reared in the field and then released with older birds after fledging,
or developing their flight feathers. This method of reintroduction has
been extensively tested and proven previously successful with sandhill
cranes.
As of December
10, these birds were in Tennessee, well on their way to their Florida
wintering grounds.
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 on or near
the Necedah NWR in central Wisconsin. During 2005, they also used more
than 17 state and private wetland areas in central and southern Wisconsin.
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. ICF and FWS biologists actively track the cranes as
they make their way north, and continue to monitor the birds, along with
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 64 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.
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.
More than
60 percent of the project's estimated $1.8 million per year budget comes
from private sources in the form of grants, donations and corporate sponsors.
Whooping Crane Eastern Partnership 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 WCEP by donating
resources, funding and personnel.
-WCEP-
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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