About WCEP | Hatching & Rearing Cranes | About the Ultralight-led Migration | Direct Autumn Release |
Founding Members
Whooping Crane Eastern Partnership
|
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
The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation is a private, non-profit organization established by Congress in 1984 to benefit the conservation of fish, wildlife, and plants, and the habitat on which they depend. Its goals are conservation education, habitat protection and restoration, and natural resource management. The Foundation meets these goals by creating partnerships between the public and private sectors and strategically investing in conservation projects. The Foundation awards challenge grants in which seed funds awarded are required to be matched with additional funding. The Foundation’s challenge grants not only increase dollars directed to conservation, but also increase organizations dedicated to conservation. The Foundation facilitates cooperation and buy-in from diverse stakeholders by creating partnerships among federal, state, and local governments, corporations, private foundations, individuals, and non-profit organizations. If you are interested in contributing to NFWF projects, follow this link to the NFWF website. Please indicate the NFWF's Eastern Migratory Whooping Crane Fund if that is the fund to which you would like to contribute.
Natural Resources Foundation of Wisconsin
The Natural Resources Foundation of Wisconsin is a 501c-3 non-profit organization based in Madison, Wisconsin. For more than twenty years, the Foundation has worked with citizens, businesses, non-profits and the government to promote the protection and enjoyment of Wisconsin’s public lands, waters and wildlife. The Foundation joined the Whooping Crane Eastern Partnership in 2001 to provide funding for on-the-ground project needs including crane tracking and monitoring, veterinary and equipment needs, and outreach and education activities. Since 2001, the Foundation has provided nearly $450,000 to the recovery efforts. Learn more at www.wisconservation.org.
Operation Migration
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.
Last updated:
April 15, 2009