The winter snows have not yet
melted, but wild whooping cranes are already returning to their
summer nesting grounds in central Wisconsin. The Whooping Crane
Eastern Partnership (WCEP) tells ANN that they are coordinating an
effort to return migrating whooping cranes to eastern North
America, reports that two reintroduced whooping cranes have arrived
at Necedah National Wildlife Refuge.
On Sunday, March 11, WCEP received several reports from members
of the public about whooping cranes sighted in Dane and Kenosha
counties in southern Wisconsin. Biologists at Necedah refuge picked
up the radio signals of cranes 7 and 13 from the ultralight-led
Class of 2003 on March 12. Crane 13-03, a female, was observed with
two sandhill cranes by an International Crane Foundation
biologist.
Number 13-03 had been wintering alone on Goose Pond State Fish
and Wildlife Area in Greene County, Ind., through January. Number
7-03, a male, had last been reported in Alachua County, Fla., with
cranes from the Class of 2005. He departed Florida on March 8.
These cranes were guided southward by project partner Operation
Migration’s ultralight aircraft in the fall of 2003 from
Necedah NWR to Chassahowitzka NWR on the Gulf coast of Florida.
Thanks to the efforts of WCEP, an international coalition of public
and private groups, there are now 62 endangered whooping cranes in
the wild in eastern North America, which was part of their historic
range.
At least 17 other reintroduced whooping cranes in the
reintroduced Eastern migratory population have begun their spring
migration, including cranes 11-02 and17-02 and their offspring
W1-06, the first wild crane hatched in the Midwest in more than a
century.
Most reintroduced whooping cranes in the Eastern migratory
population spend the summer in central Wisconsin, where they use
areas on or near the Necedah National Wildlife Refuge, as well as
state and private lands.
“For more than 100 years, the call of the whooper was
absent in Wisconsin,” said Signe Holtz, director of the
Bureau of Endangered Resources at the Wisconsin Department of
Natural Resources, “but now, thanks to the dedication and
generosity of project partners, businesses and individuals, we have
a chance to hear that call again in the skies and over the rivers
and wetlands of Wisconsin.
"The past year saw great success as the project’s first
wild-hatched chick survived to successfully migrate south and the
Wisconsin Natural Resources Board unanimously approved the
Wisconsin Whooping Crane Management Plan. There also was sadness at
losing birds to storms on their winter range. But like the return
of spring, the resilience of the partnership and the birds
themselves continue to take this effort forward,” Holtz
said.
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.
In addition to the ultralight-led birds, four cranes made their
first southward migration this fall as part of WCEP’s Direct
Autumn Release program. Biologists from the International Crane
Foundation and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reared the four
cranes at Necedah NWR and released them in the company of older
cranes from whom the young birds would learn the migration
route.
This is the second year WCEP has used the Direct Autumn Release
method, which supplements the success of the ultralight migrations.
The four 2006 Direct Autumn Release birds arrived at their
wintering grounds in Florida on Dec. 8.
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.
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 Fish and Wildlife
Service biologists, along with Wisconsin DNR biologists, continue
to monitor the birds while they are in their summer locations.
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 62 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 45 birds lives year-round
in the central Florida Kissimmee region. 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 200 yards; try to remain in your
vehicle; do not approach in a vehicle within 100 yards. 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,
the U.S. Geological Survey’s Patuxent Wildlife Research
Center and National Wildlife Health Center, the National Fish and
Wildlife Foundation, the Natural Resources Foundation of Wisconsin,
and the International Whooping Crane Recovery Team.
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.