Cranes start flight to Florida

Cranes start flight to Florida

Seven states, 1285 miles, and an unknown number of migration days lie between the 2008 Whooping crane chicks’ fledging ground at Necedah National Wildlife Refuge in Wisconsin, and their wintering grounds in Florida.

Fourteen young cranes are on their from the Necedah National Wildlife Refuge to the Chassahowitzka National Wildlife Refuge in Florida. They are being led by a fleet of four ultralight aircraft and a small Cessna airplane.

An Ultralight pilot leads a small flock of whooping cranes on the ultralight-led migration from the Necedah National Wildlife Refuge in Necedah, Wis.

Whooping cranes once ranged from central Canada to Mexico and from Utah to the Atlantic coast. As many as 1,400 of the birds existed in the mid-1800s. Their numbers plummeted in the second half of the 19th century. By World War II, the species numbered just 16 birds in southwestern Louisiana.

After concern rose that whooping cranes could become extinct if a natural disaster or accident decimated the only self-sustaining flock in North America, the Whooping Crane Eastern Partnership launched the reintroduction effort in the 1990s. Now numbering 227, that flock migrates between Canada and Texas.

First reintroduction efforts in the 1970s that tried to use sandhill cranes as foster parents were unsuccessful. In the early 1990s, scientists released 33 birds in Florida to create another non-migrating flock, which numbers more than 50 today.

Operation Migration has played a leading role in the reintroduction of endangered Whooping cranes into eastern North America since 2001.

An ultralight pilot named William Lishman began to experiment with leading wild geese with his plane. Lishman enlisted his friend, project co-founder Joe Duff, to help. The film, "C'mon Geese," documented their work. Scientists then approached them with an idea to use the concept with whooping cranes.

Since then the project has introduced 69 birds into the wild. The goal is to eventually reach the self-sustaining level of 125 individual birds and 25 breeding pairs. At that point, the flock will become the second self-sustaining migrating group of whooping cranes in North America.

Exact stopover locations are not disclosed to limit contact between humans and the birds and protect the privacy of their host landowners. But you can visit www.operationmigration.org  for daily updates on Operation Migration's progress.

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How to help

Operation Migration relies on grants and contributions from individuals and foundations to continue their work. Help Operation Migration ensure the survival of endangered whooping cranes by being a MileMaker. Project organizers took the total cost of the migration, divided by the total number of miles, to determine that one mile of the trip can be paid for with a donation of $208, a half-mile by a donation of $104 and a quarter mile with a donation of $52.

Learn more at www.operationmigration.org/mile_makers.htm