Whooping Crane Eastern Partnership
Founding Members

International Crane Foundation
Since its founding in 1973, the International Crane Foundation (ICF), a non-profit organization, focuses attention on the conservation of the world’s fifteen species of cranes. Through its programs in education, research, field ecology, captive propagation and reintroduction, ICF helps to ensure the survival of cranes and their habitats throughout the world. ICF will have an active role in the reintroduction of an eastern migratory population of whooping cranes. The new flock will be released in Wisconsin and taught to migrate to Florida. ICF will educate the public about the reintroduction effort through outreach programs and on-site tours. The ICF Crane Conservation Department will provide expertise in rearing chicks for release, and monitor the health of the new flock. The ICF Development Team will participate in securing funding for this project.

WCRT International Whooping Crane Recovery Team
The Whooping Crane Recovery Team consists of ten crane experts to provide policy recommendations to the Regional Directors of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and Canadian Wildlife Service who appoint five members respectively. The Team writes a plan to recover the species. Its primary goal is to plan actions to fully protect the Aransas/Wood Buffalo natural flock, and establish two additional flocks in order to save the species. Using cranes hatched in captivity, efforts to establish a nonmigratory whooping crane flock began in Florida in 1993. There are currently about 80 whooping cranes in central Florida, and a pair first hatched a chick in March, 2000. The Recovery Team has searched North America for the best place to establish a migratory population. In September, 1999, the Team recommended that a whooping crane flock be established using ultralight aircraft to teach a migration pathway between central Wisconsin and the west coast of Florida.

National Fish and Wildlife Foundation

Natural Resources Foundation of Wisconsin
NRFW Fact Sheet (PDF)
The Natural Resources Foundation of Wisconsin is a non-profit organization that promotes the knowledge, enjoyment, and stewardship of Wisconsin’s natural resources by providing educational programs and financially empowering grassroots as well as professional environmental programs. We help a variety of DNR programs in need of private sector support, but actively fundraise for selected major projects, like the whooping crane recovery effort. We are committed to raise start-up funds for the project’s first three years to help construct facilities and purchase equipment critical to the project’s success.

Operation Migration, Inc.
Operation Migration (OM) is a non-profit organization founded in Canada in 1994, and in the United States in 1998, to promote the conservation of migratory species through innovative research, partnership and education.

Following a decade of research, field studies, and successful trials with Canada geese, trumpeter swans, and sandhill cranes; scientists endorsed OM’s unique method of teaching captive-reared birds to migrate. This led to Operation Migration becoming a founding partner of the Whooping Crane Eastern Partnership, an international consortium of private and public agencies whose goal it is to safeguard the endangered Whooping crane.

For many avian species, the ability to migrate is a learned process. Thus, every autumn since 2001, Operation Migration’s team has guided a new generation of captive-raised chicks from Wisconsin to Florida using its ultralight aircraft. Each successive spring the Whooping cranes return unassisted to central Wisconsin, resuming a migration pattern that had been interrupted for more than a century.

To learn more about Operation Migration’s role in WCEP, please investigate the many pages of stories and photos on their website at www.operationmigration.org.

United States Fish and Wildlife Service

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Canadian Wildlife Service are given the responsibility by law to recover endangered species. The Service will facilitate a diverse partnership of federal, state and private organizations whose common goal is to establish a second migratory flock of whooping cranes in the eastern states. Additionally, the Service has primary responsibility for operations at the Wisconsin release site (Necedah National Wildlife Refuge) and the Florida wintering site (Chassahowitzka National Wildlife Refuge). As part of the overall team, the Service is also responsible for flyway states coordination, budget development and project outreach and communications.

USGS National Wildlife Health Center
The USGS National Wildlife Health Center (NWHC) is a Federal diagnostic and research laboratory under the Department of Interior. The Center's focus is on prevention, detection and management of wildlife disease for the benefit of free-living wildlife. Efforts are concentrated on animals under Federal stewardship such as migratory birds and mammals, endangered species and animals on Federal lands. NWHC was established in 1975 and is based in Madison, Wisconsin. Center staff provide diagnostic and research services nationwide and internationally. The Center has provided veterinary consultation, diagnostic services, collaboration on health risk assessments and disease research in support of the crane project.

USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center
USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center (Patuxent) of the U. S. Geological Survey provides research support to client bureaus in the Dept. of Interior. Included are the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U. S. Park Service, and the Bureau of Land Management and other clients in the United States. Patuxent is located in Laurel, MD on 12,800 acres of land managed for a diversity of mid-Atlantic habitats. Patuxent raises about two-thirds of all whooping cranes raised for release to the wild and will supply a substantial number of whooping cranes for the Wisconsin to Florida release project. Patuxent will also provide research and logistical support for the Wisconsin release. This support will include rearing sandhill and whooping crane chicks conditioned to follow ultralight aircraft. Patuxent will ship these chicks to the Necedah National Wildlife Refuge in Wisconsin for continued ultralight training.

Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources
The Department of Natural Resources (DNR) is the state agency charged with managing Wisconsin’s environment from fish and wildlife, to air, water, land and outdoor recreation. Wisconsin was the first state to officially partner with the Whooping Crane Recovery Team (WCRT) and the U.S Fish and Wildlife Service in the effort to establish an eastern migrating population of whooping cranes and was chosen by the WCRT as the summer nesting site. The state maintains and manages a portion of the wetland complex that will support the whooping crane flock, and has supplied much of the environmental data used to assess the suitability of the Wisconsin site where the cranes will be released. The DNR is also funding the project coordinator’s position and is providing many staff and department resources to the project.

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