One Bird Confirmed Back in Wisconsin

The first whooping crane to return to Wisconsin from Florida this year has been confirmed. The crane, known as “6-01”, was confirmed amid 20 sandhill cranes Sunday in Marquette County, Wisconsin by the International Crane Foundation’s Field Ecology Project Coordinator, Anne Lacy. This crane is one of five pioneering endangered birds from the first year of an ongoing reintroduction effort that uses ultralight aircraft to guide young cranes on their first southward migration.

The Whooping Crane Eastern Partnership (WCEP) is a consortium of non-profit organizations and government agencies working together to return a migratory population of whooping cranes to eastern North America, which is a portion of its historic range.

The “Class of 2001” was the first group of whooping cranes to be led south using ultralight aircraft along a new eastern North America flyway. Project partner Operation Migration Inc. led two more groups of cranes south in the fall of 2002 and 2003. The juvenile cranes are led on a 1,200-mile journey from Wisconsin’s Necedah National Wildlife Refuge through Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Georgia, arriving at Florida’s Chassahowitzka National Wildlife Refuge in late fall. The ultralight aircraft is only used during the cranes’ first fall migration; they return to Wisconsin on their own in the spring. Project biologists believe the 2003 cranes will do the same.

There are currently 36 whooping cranes in this reintroduction project. Prior to 2001, whooping cranes had not migrated over the eastern portion of North America in more than a century.

Other cranes from the Class of 2001, as well as cranes from the Class of 2002, have begun their spring migrations.

FMI: www.bringbackthecranes.org, www.savingcranes.org, www.operationmigration.org, www.savingcranes.org/whatsnew/Migration_flocks.asp