Whooping Crane Eastern Partnership
2006 Annual Report
Below is the Project Overview and 2006 Project Year in Summary from the Annual Report, click here for the complete 64
page report (PDF).
Project Overview
The fundamental purpose for the formation of the Whooping Crane Eastern Partnership (WCEP) was to
plan and guide the reintroduction of a self-sustaining population of migratory Whooping cranes (Grus
americana) in eastern North America. The project also focuses strongly on efforts to promote environmental education. WCEP partners promote
the development of public awareness and support for the protection and restoration of Whooping crane
habitat to decision-makers and the public.
All activities are implemented through the coordinated joint and individual efforts of the WCEP partners,
who work collectively with state and federal agencies with jurisdiction over the Whooping cranes and/or
the habitats they use.
The goal of the project, as set by the International (Canada/United States) Whooping Crane Recovery
Team, is to establish a discrete, self-sustaining population of at least 125 birds, containing a minimum of
twenty-five (25) breeding pairs. This pioneer flock will augment two existing populations: the only naturally
occurring population that migrates between northern Canada and southern United States in the west;
and, the non-migratory flock reintroduced into central Florida beginning in 1993
The partnership is dedicated to a science-based approach, with emphasis given to the collection and
review of data relevant to project goals. Collection and dissemination of such information is essential to
evaluating reintroduction methods and results, and to assessing this restoration effort as a conservation
model. Additionally, partners recognize the importance of engaging the public with the challenges and
successes of the project, and in the lives and survival of the reintroduced birds.
Based on protocols and techniques researched and pioneered over a ten year span by Operation
Migration with Canada geese, Trumpeter swans, and Sandhill cranes, WCEP inaugurated this multi-year
reintroduction project in 2001.
Included in the protocols developed and incorporated are techniques that encourage human avoidance
and encourage wild behavior. To this end, each year, a new generation of captive-hatched cranes is
costumed-reared in isolation from human environments and influence to every extent possible, as well as
being conditioned to follow custom-modified ultralight aircraft.
Upon the arrival of the migration season, the juvenile cranes are ultralight-led along a +1200 mile predetermined
migration route. The migration begins in the north at the Necedah National Wildlife Refuge in
Wisconsin and over-flies seven states enroute to its southern terminus at Chassahowitzka National
Wildlife Refuge in Florida. The fifty-two (52) surviving adult and sub-adult Whooping cranes led along this
route during the first five project years continue to select suitable habitat, avoid humans, and unaided,
self-initiate a migration twice yearly.
Since its inception, the project has received enthusiastic governmental, public, and private support, and
on an ongoing basis, has stimulated interest in protecting and restoring habitats for Whooping cranes, as
well as other wetland species / wildlife along the migration route.
WCEP celebrates the ‘power of partnership’, to which the credit is due for the tremendous advances in
the work in restoring this endangered species and symbol of international conservation to Eastern North
America.
2006 PROJECT YEAR IN SUMMARY
Three words come to mind immediately to describe this year and the upcoming year for the eastern
migratory Whooping crane reintroduction project: CELEBRATION, EVOLUTION and MOMENTUM!
Celebration
We have much to celebrate this year regarding the project. Here’s a short list:
1. 10 pairs formed this year with 5 nests producing eggs at Necedah National Wildlife Refuge!
2. The first wild chick to hatch, followed by a successful natural migration to Florida!
3. 18 chicks made their first ultralight migration with Operation Migration - with no mortality!
4. 4 chicks made a successful migration using the Direct Autumn Release technique being
perfected by ICF and the U.S. FWS!
5. Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources approved a Statewide Whooping Crane
Management plan designed to manage the growing flock!
6. The total reintroduced population grew to 82 birds - an all time high for the project - well on our
way to a goal of a minimum of 125.
At the same time the project experienced some significant challenges. Six birds were lost during the year
due to predation, power line strikes, and unknown causes. Mortality within the population is expected, so
these numbers were not unusual or worrisome. Our teams continue to analyze each death to determine if
there is any management intervention we could apply to future situations. While we all understand there
will be mortality, our goal is to reduce it to the minimum possible.
At 76 days from start to finish, the ultralight-led migration was the longest on record. (Not including the
final move from the interim stopover at Halpata Tastanaki Preserve to the Chassahowitzka Refuge.) This
imparted both personal and financial stress to the project. The OM crew waited and waited for suitable
weather on many days, but their proven expertise at bird care kept the flock safe and fully capable of
making the migration. In fact, it was a banner year, with 18 birds and zero mortality. However, the
greenbacks were also making their flight, as every day on the road increased the budget need for OM.
The tracking and monitoring team also faced a daunting task of monitoring a growing flock-without a
growing field staff. And in these times of budget constraints it’s unlikely that we will see a significant staff
increase. So the tracking team had to set priorities for their monitoring, and at times, found it could not
monitor the movements of some of the birds. This resulted in increased reliance on citizen sightings and
increased activity of State agency cooperators to help fill in the gaps. In particular, Wisconsin DNR and
the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission were great in this regard.
Indeed, all primary partners experienced serious budget challenges in 2006. Coupled with rising costs
and new responsibilities, national and local budget reductions affected all of the partners conducting the
field portions of the project. It is clear that we need additional support to maintain our capabilities.
But 2006 was a year for us to CELEBRATE! We made outstanding progress towards our collective goal
of a wild self sustaining flock.
Evolution
This is an important word for us. When we started the project we knew where we wanted to go - but didn’t
know precisely how to get there. Our pioneering efforts were constantly being adjusted as we learned
from our mistakes and tried new techniques that held promise. This applied to all aspects of the project,
from ultralight training to banding methods to the release techniques. Our project encourages constant
innovation and problem solving, rather than blaming when things go wrong. After all, we hardly knew what
was right!
Our short term strategy is simple: to train and release as many birds as possible each year, and, to do our
best to keep mortality to a minimum. This strategy also includes paying attention to maintaining natural
wildness during rearing and training so that our growing population will be wild as a result.
Our primary technique of costume based chick rearing and ultralight-led migration has proven very
successful and we intend to maintain it. In addition we have been working to perfect and test a second
technique called Direct Autumn Release, which holds the promise of supplementing the growing flock by
costume rearing birds and releasing birds in the fall to naturally migrate with other older Whooping cranes
who have been taught the migration route using the ultralight method.
The old axiom about not having all your ‘chicks’ in one basket holds true for us. As our project evolves,
we hope to see the day come when we can rely exclusively on natural reproduction to support a selfsustaining
population. But for now, we will need to continue releases into the future, and to monitor our
progress before we make any decisions to change our methods or reduce our supplementation of the
flock through the primary ultralight lead migration technique and the supplementary DAR technique. In 3
to 4 years we would plan a comprehensive evaluation to determine if changes are needed based on the
rates of natural reproduction and mortality, and the future success of the DAR technique.
We will also try to maximize the numbers of birds released by both ultralight and DAR techniques. There
have been some general concerns regarding the potential for sexual affinity to Sandhill cranes as a result
of the DAR technique.
While the DAR birds are raised as Whoopers and released with Whoopers, they are known to spend
much time with Sandhill cranes on migration, and we must make sure they are correctly sexually
imprinted before we consider expanding the DAR releases in a major way. This will take 3 to 4 years as
mentioned above, and part of the strategy will be to carefully evaluate pairing associations of the DAR
birds as they reach sexual maturity.
As a result, we will be requesting up to 24 chicks for the ultralight-led migration in 2007, and 8 to 12
chicks for Direct Autumn Release. This would increase ultralight led cohorts, and more than double our
DAR birds to enhance our future evaluation of that technique.
Our propagation cooperators have been working very hard (and successfully) to increase production,
paying close attention to the genetic recommendations of Dr. Ken Jones that were adopted as guidelines
for the project to increase the genetic viability of our growing flock. While it is possible to reach these
numbers, they currently reflect the maximum we believe we could achieve given personnel and facility
constraints, and the reproductive potential of the birds.
Along these lines, the Recovery team has a captive propagation group that is constantly evolving new
techniques and strategies to increase production, manage genetic issues, and ensure healthy birds. Our
WCEP Health Team interacts with the propagation managers to minimize disease potential and manage
it when it appears.
Another critical aspect of our evolving strategy is to closely monitor this spring’s nesting behavior of the
returning birds. Our Whoopers are reproducing at an early age, and to date have not been very
successful parents with 4 of 5 nests lost this past spring. Based on current pairings we expect a larger
number of successful nests this year, and by closely monitoring both the birds’ behavior, attempt to
identify causes of nest failure, should it occur. The refuge is working with other partners to install cameras
at some nest sites to record what happens.
Our monitoring efforts are also undergoing rapid change and evolution. We are being stressed by our
success! Our small dedicated tracking team can no longer monitor every bird all of the time. It has been
forced to set priorities and to rely on an expanding network of cooperators to provide sighting and
behavioral information.
We have also developed a draft long-term monitoring strategy that we are continuing to review and refine
so we can deploy the resources needed to gather the information that will be essential for future
management of the population.
The Wisconsin DNR has provided great assistance in the development of
a database for the project. This supplements the more internal database of the tracking team and will
make it easier for partners and other cooperators to access project data.
A final area to mention is the evolution toward population management. Early in the project our focus was
limited to getting birds on the landscape. But now that we are seeing success in numbers, it is important
to consider the management needs of the growing population. Wherever these birds land it creates
excitement and priority for land protection activities.
There will be further circumstances of injured birds, or occasional conflicts with human activities. It is
critical to have a plan for dealing with these opportunities and problems. This year the Wisconsin DNR
took on the task of developing a State-wide management plan which was recently approved unanimously
by the Natural Resources Board. We had worked with Wisconsin with the strategy in mind that this state
plan could serve as a model for management throughout the entire flyway. The plan can serve that
purpose, and we will work with other jurisdictions to follow its lead.
In summary, our project strategies continue to evolve as new knowledge is gained through our collective
and individual efforts. This EVOLUTION is healthy and vital to our success. We need to guard against
being critical of new ideas, and be flexible to change direction as circumstances warrant.
Momentum
We have been at this for 6 years now. And with each year we have seen new successes. At the same
time it has been harder and harder to maintain momentum in area of funding. One of the ‘perils of
partnership’ is the attitude that, ‘Mikie will do it,’ when budget times get tough. This is reflected in some
partners or donors reducing support, believing that the partnership is so well developed that their
individual contribution will not have an effect. NOTHING COULD BE FARTHER FROM THE TRUTH. For
our project, the whole literally is the sum of the parts. We need to keep our momentum up, and we need
to keep our current supporters and gain new ones. We have been introspective and concluded that we
may not have done the best job of saying ‘thank you,’ and keeping our supports informed. So we will work
harder on that in the future.
Our project staff has also been working very, very hard over the past 6 years and certainly has varying
degrees of fatigue. It is critical for all of us to take the time to reflect, relax, recharge, and CELEBRATE
our successes to date so that we can be energized about the future. The budget and personnel issues
continue to affect our project staff’s morale. We need to continue to address this as we can; to pay close
attention to current staff’s needs; and to take the time to thank them and recognize their efforts. We are a
dedicated, self motivated lot. But occasionally we all need some TLC and R&R.
Finally, as we demonstrate our progress, we need to increase our communications through our outreach
team as they ‘tell our story.’ We need to stress that to maintain our progress, we need to have continued
support from our sponsors, donors, partners, and the public. This outreach is absolutely critical to
maintaining our MOMENTUM.
And we will maintain our momentum……..
Addendum
Subsequent to the completion of this Report but prior to it going to press, we suffered the
shocking loss of 17 of the 18 young cranes in the Class of 2006 when they were killed at
their Florida pen site during a severe storm.
WCEP is developing an Action Plan to reduce the chance of a reoccurrence. When
completed, it will be posted at http://www.bringbackthecranes.org/. It is difficult to protect against a random act of nature - which is why this project is so
crucial to the species’ survival. We will recover from this setback however. The captive
propagation facilities are reporting their best year ever and we have high hopes for the
Class of 2007!
Go here for the complete 64 page report
(PDF)
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