Author: Susan Stephens

Biologists have succeeded in teaching a common type of crane
to migrate. Now they can work on its endangered relative. The Great
Lakes Radio Consortium’s Susan Stephens reports:

There’s been an unusual sight in Midwest skies this week: scientists are using an Ultralight to try to teach the act of migrationtoa group of birds in order to help the endangered whooping crane. TheGreat Lakes Radio Consortium’s Susan Stephens reports:

Transcript

There will be an unusual sight in the Midwest skies this week:
scientists are using an ultralight to try to teach the act of migration to
a group of birds in order to help the endangered whooping crane. Susan
Stephens reports for the Great Lakes Radio Consortium.

Joe Duff of the Whooping Crane Eastern Partnership uses the recorded calls
of sandhill crane parents to keep 12 young birds close to his ultralight
aircraft as they fly from Wisconsin to Florida. If this migration is
successful, it could be repeated next year with a flock of endangered
whooping cranes, according to the team’s veterinarian Glenn Olsen:

This is a trial run, with the sandhill cranes because the sandhill cranes
are NOT endangered. We don’t want anything to happen to them, obviously,
but we have a tremendous investment in the whooping cranes.

Team leaders say they hope to reach Florida with the birds by the end of
the month. For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Susan Stephens.