Ultralights Guide Endangered Birds to Refuge
Posted on: Wednesday, 19 March 2008, 03:00 CDT
Seventeen endangered whooping cranes and their surrogate parents (four ultralight aircraft) reached Chassahowitzka National Wildlife Refuge (NWR) in Citrus County, Florida, where they will get acclimated to their new wintering habitat. The young cranes traveled 1,261 miles through seven states. These whooping cranes -the "Class of 2007"-are the seventh group to be guided by ultralights to Florida from Necedah National Wildlife Refuge in central Wisconsin. The Whooping Crane Eastern Partnership (WCEP), an international coalition of public and private organizations, is conducting the reintroduction project in an effort to return this endangered species to its historic range in eastern North America. When the Class of 2007 birds make their spring migration, there will be 76 migrating whooping cranes in the wild in eastern North America.
"This migration has been one of the most challenging so far," said Jim Kraus, manager of Chassahowitzka NWR. "The Operation Migration team has done a remarkable job in getting the cranes to Florida."
At 97 days, this was the longest ultralight-led migration since WCEP began reintroducing whooping cranes. Unsuitable flying weather caused delays at nearly every stopover along the migration route. WCEP biologists say that the lengthy trip and late arrival will not affect the birds' ability to make their unassisted migration northward this spring.
In addition to the 17 ultralight-led birds, seven 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 seven cranes at Necedah NWR and released them in the company of older cranes in hopes that the young birds would learn the migration route. These seven birds are currently at several locations in Tennessee.
In 2001, Operation Migration's pilots led the first whooping crane chicks, conditioned to follow their ultralight surrogates, from Necedah NWR to Chassahowitzka NWR. Each subsequent year, biologists and pilots have conditioned and guided additional groups of juvenile cranes to Chassahowitzka.
Whooping cranes that take part in the ultralight and Direct Autumn Release reintroductions are hatched at the U.S. Geological Survey's Patuxent Wildlife Research Center in Laurel, Md., and the International Crane Foundation in Baraboo, Wis. Chicks are raised under a strict isolation protocol and to ensure the birds remain wild, handlers adhere to a notalking rule and wear costumes designed to mask the human form.
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 76 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.
For more information on the project, visit the WCEP website at http://www.bringbackthecranes.org
Source: Ocean News & Technology
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