Whooping crane migration 2006.
16/11/2007 00:00:00
Whooping crane facts
- 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 61 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 55 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.
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.
Most graduated classes of whoopers spend the summer in central Wisconsin, where they use areas on or near the Necedah National Wildlife Refuge, as well as various state and private lands. Reintroduced whooping cranes have also spent time in Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois, Michigan and other states.
In the fall, project staff from the International Crane Foundation and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service track and monitor wild southbound cranes in an effort to learn as much as possible about their unassisted journeys and the habitat choices they make along the way.
In the spring, ICF and FWS biologists actively track the cranes as they make their way north again, and continue to monitor the birds, with the assistance of Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources biologists, while they are in their summer locations.
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