Saving Whoopers From Oblivion

Saving Whoopers From Oblivion: Groundbreaking Efforts Led Whooping Cranes On Path To Recovery

KATHRYN A. KAHLER

Kathryn A. Kahler is associate editor of Wisconsin Natural Resources magazine.

As we celebrate the conservation successes of the last 40 years, one story soars high among the rest: whooping cranes.

Twenty-one years ago, the first ultralight-led flock of whooping cranes took off from Necedah National Wildlife Refuge in central Wisconsin en route to Florida. “History was in the making,” this magazine reported of that Operation Migration effort.

“These were the first wild whoopers to fly over Wisconsin in 123 years,” the story noted. “They were embarking on the first leg of a 48day, 1,218-mile journey behind the slow-flying ultralight airplane driven by a costumed pilot they thought of as a parent.”

From a low of 15 birds in 1946, whooping cranes (Grus americana) have slowly returned, thanks to federal protections and work by the Whooping Crane Eastern Partnership, led by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The conservation effort yielded what one USFWS official called the “wildlife equivalent of putting a man on the moon.”

Whooping crane conservation efforts two decades ago involved captive rearing and ultralight-led flights to teach young birds how to migrate.

Doug Pellerin

TEACHING BIRDS TO FLY

Conservationists created a plan to establish a new migrating flock east of the Mississippi River, a groundbreaking wildlife management program. Suitable nesting and wintering grounds needed to be identified and a migration route established between the two. That’s when Wisconsin entered the picture.

In September 1999, Necedah was chosen for nesting, and the Chassahowitzka National Wildlife Refuge north of Tampa, Florida, was designated as wintering grounds for the new flock.

The eggs came from captive whoopers at the U.S. Geological Survey’s Patuxent Wildlife Research Center in Maryland, where they were hatched and then flown to Wisconsin.

Over the next several weeks, the young birds were nurtured, protected and trained to fly on their own, all while researchers actively avoided the possibility of the birds imprinting on humans. This feat required staff to wear white robes and crane-head puppets while using small ultralight aircraft to teach them to fly.

The final test arrived on Oct. 17, 2001, when the eight young whoopers took off. With out adult birds to show them the way, the birds were led by three ultralight airplanes during their southbound flight. They landed in Florida on Dec. 3.

Five surviving birds made their way back to Necedah the following April without the help of the planes, becoming the first wild migrating flock of whooping cranes in eastern U.S. skies in more than a century.

ADAPT TO SUCCEED

Two decades later, recovery efforts for North America’s largest crane species have taken a somewhat different focus, said DNR conservation biologist Davin Lopez.

“The ultralight flights were some of the biggest efforts ever to save a species from extinction, and they were a monumental achievement,” said Lopez, who serves on the multi-agency whooping crane partnership. “But it also used so many costly and artificial techniques that we transitioned to what we hope are more natural methods.”

The last ultralight-led flight was in 2016. After that, a transition began, replacing the Whooping Crane Eastern Partnership with the current Whooping Crane Reintroduction Program.

This included another type of captive rearing for this federally endangered species. Both costume-reared and parent-reared chicks are released in areas with wild adults present to teach them how to migrate in the fall.

Slow success has been recorded, but the efforts are not without problems.

“We’ve seen great adult survival, breeding, nesting and hatching,” Lopez said. “But chick survival remains low.”

Other issues include the avian black fly, which can disrupt nesting whoopers. Researchers initially introduced a bacteria that kills black fly larvae, Lopez said, but eventually found it better to take eggs from nests, raise the birds and reintroduce them later, forcing cranes to renest when black flies were not as abundant.

“Also, since Necedah is a great breeding ground for black flies, we’ve compensated by spreading releases over a broader area,” Lopez added. “We now include the Horicon National Wildlife Refuge and the White River Marsh State Wildlife Area near Berlin.”

Eva Szyszkoski

HOPE FOR THE FUTURE

While whoopers haven’t returned in huge numbers, there has been slow but steady population growth for the species, which typically mates for life and has a lifespan of up to 25 years in the wild.

“Several years ago, numbers were over 100 (in Wisconsin), but we had to curtail efforts when the COVID-19 pandemic hit," Lopez said. “The wild population dropped to about 75, but we’re ramping up again with releases this spring. We hope to release at most 10 parent- and costume-reared cranes.

“That doesn’t sound like a lot, but it’s certainly a success when you consider there were only about 20 birds when we started. We’ve literally brought them back from the brink of extinction.”

LEARN MORE

For more about efforts to save whooping cranes, check the International Crane Foundation website, savingcranes.org.