One of the goals of the Partnership is to get more cranes to raise young in the wild, but so far, only one crane chick has been successfully hatched and gone on to migrating. (Photo courtesy of the US Fish and Wildlife Service)
Wildlife experts are trying to bring back a flock of migrating whooping
cranes in the eastern United States. But there’s a problem. Scientists are
having trouble getting the whoopers to hatch chicks in the wild. Chuck
Quirmbach reports – researchers are taking a closer look at the ten-year-old
rehabilitation effort:
Transcript
Wildlife experts are trying to bring back a flock of migrating whooping
cranes in the eastern United States. But there’s a problem. Scientists are
having trouble getting the whoopers to hatch chicks in the wild. Chuck
Quirmbach reports – researchers are taking a closer look at the ten-year-old
rehabilitation effort:
It’s not easy to get whooping cranes to reproduce, but here in Baraboo,
Wisconsin, researchers have had success at getting captive cranes to produce
chicks.
For the last ten years, the Whooping Crane Eastern Partnership has created a
flock of more than 100 whoopers. Researchers hatched the birds
– and trained them to migrate by flying behind ultralight aircraft ….or to
follow adult cranes. The birds now fly between the upper Midwest and
southeastern U.S.
But one of the goals of the Partnership is to get more cranes to raise young
in the wild. So far, only one crane chick has been successfully hatched and
gone on to migrating.
Jeb Barzen is with the International Crane Foundation. He says they can’t
keep supplying the flock with chicks hatched in captivity:
“It’s expensive. it’s expensive in time, expensive in money…expensive in overall conservation effort, because what you put into whooping crane reintroduction you can’t put into other conservation projects at that time. so to be fully successful …you want that population to be
able to survive on it’s own.”
So far, about 16 million dollars has gone into re-introducing whoopers to
the eastern u.s. More than half of that money came from private donors.
The birds’ main summer home is here at the Necedah National Wildlife Refuge
in Wisconsin.
It’s not that the cranes don’t get close to each other. If you watch the cranes here, you can spot single cranes and the occasional couple.
Jeb Barzen pauses to watch two tall white cranes having a territorial dispute:
“Ooh! these birds are threatening each other. that’s a preen behind the wing
threat…that the second bird is doing…so these are not birds of the same
pair.”
Researchers don’t know why the birds are not raising more wild chicks. But
they do have some theories. Even when cranes do make nice and produce an
egg – the relatively young cranes may be too inexperienced to be patient
parents. Black flies may drive the birds off their nest. Or the parents
may be low on body fat and take off to find food.
The crane researchers are gathering data to find out what cranes need for a
successful nesting site. They’re using tracking radios to follow some of the
birds.
Anne Lacy is with the International Crane Foundation. Today she’s driving
around southern Wisconsin listening for the whoopers.
“it’s important to look at what choices they make as a young bird
before they breed…to know how they choose those areas….they need for
water for roosting at night…they need that eventually for nesting.”
This kind of research is being ramped up this spring. That’s because an
independent report raised some concerns about the crane recovery effort.
The report was done by consultants hired by the Whooping Crane Eastern
Partnership. It mentions problems with financial oversight, scientific
coordination, and whether the birds’ main summer home – at the Necedah
wildlife refuge – is the best place for them.
Louise Clemency is with the US Fish and Wildlife Service. And
she is a co-chair of the eastern partnership. She says the crane recovery
effort won’t make any big changes overnight.
“We’re trying to the time to draw the right conclusions so we can
take the right next step.”
Clemency says decisions on the whooping crane experiment could come next
year. In the meantime..she hopes that some crane eggs laid this spring at
the Necedah refuge will hatch.
For The Environment Report, I’m Chuck Quirmbach.
