Whooping Crane Eastern Partnership
NEWS RELEASE
Wild Whooping Cranes Arrive in Florida
November 10, 2006
Contacts:
Joan Garland 608-356-9462,
x142; 608-381-1262 (cell)
Rachel F. Levin, (612) 713-5311
Three reintroduced whooping cranes making their first unassisted migration arrived in Florida on November 6. Cranes 2, 3 and 7 of the ultralight-led “Class of 2005” arrived in Madison County, Florida. These yearling cranes are the first of the reintroduced eastern whooping crane flock to complete the 2006 fall migration.
Biologists tracked the three cranes--using radio and satellite tracking--as they migrated from Winnebago County, Iowa, through Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Georgia, finally arriving in Florida after a migration of about a week.
Many other members of the newly-established eastern migratory flock of whooping cranes have also begun their fall migrations, pushed out of their summer homes at Necedah NWR and on public and private lands around central Wisconsin by the first blast of wintry air to hit the upper Midwest.
The Whooping Crane Eastern Partnership, or 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.
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 migrations and the habitat choices they make along the way. The birds are monitored during the winter in Florida and tracked as they make their way north in the spring. ICF and USFWS biologists, along with Wisconsin DNR biologists, continue to monitor the birds while they are in their summer locations.
“Seeing the first hatching of whooping cranes in the wild in over 100 years and yearling cranes from the class of 2005 leading the fall migration back to Florida is truly exciting. While we are still a long way from our aggressive goal of establishing an independent, self sustaining flock of wild birds in eastern North America, we can feel proud of the power of a diverse partnership and what we have accomplished to date,” said Jim Hook, president of the International Crane Foundation.
There are now 66 migratory whooping cranes in the wild in eastern North America -- including the first whooping crane chicks to hatch in the wild in Wisconsin in more than a century.
The two wild whooping crane chicks hatched on June 22 at the Necedah National Wildlife Refuge. The wild-hatched crane chicks stuck close to their parents on their territory at Necedah NWR for much of the summer until fledging, or gaining their flight feathers, in early September. One of the chicks stayed behind when its parents and sibling moved from their territory, and as of today that chick has not been located. The other chick, a female, was leg-banded so that she can be tracked by WCEP biologists.
The WCEP ultralight-led migration of the Class of 2006 began on Oct. 5 as four ultralight aircraft from project partner, Operation Migration, led eighteen crane chicks from Necedah National Wildlife Refuge in central Wisconsin. The cranes, planes and pilots have made slow progress because of unfavourable weather and are currently at a stopover in Boone County, Indiana.
The ultralight-led Class of 2006 includes the first crane hatched from the reintroduced eastern migratory whooping crane population. Hatched on May 7, at the U.S. Geological Survey’s Patuxent Wildlife Research Center in Laurel, Md., Crane 2-06’s parents are whooping cranes 13 (a male) and 18 (a female) from the ultralight-led crane Class of 2002.
In addition to the 18 birds being led south by ultralights, biologists from the International Crane Foundation and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reared four whooping cranes at Necedah NWR that were released in the company of older cranes in hopes that the young birds learn the migration route, part of WCEP’s “Direct Autumn Release” program, which supplements the successful ultralight migrations.
In 2001, Operation Migration’s pilots led the first whooping crane chicks, conditioned to follow their ultralight surrogates, south from Necedah NWR to Chassahowitzka NWR. Each subsequent year, WCEP biologists and pilots have conditioned and guided additional groups of juvenile cranes to Chassahowitzka.
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, Md. 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 brought 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.
Most graduated classes of whooping cranes spend the summer in central Wisconsin, where they use areas on or near the Necedah National Wildlife Refuge, as well as various state and private lands. Reintroduced whooping cranes have also spent time in Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois, Michigan and other states.
Whooping cranes were on the verge of extinction in the 1940s. Today, there are only about 500 birds in existence, 350 of them in the wild. Aside from the 66 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 55 birds lives year-round in central Florida. The remaining 150 whooping cranes are in captivity in zoos and breeding facilities around North America.
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 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. 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.
-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