Dozens of whooping cranes are heading north this spring, as an experiment continues to develop a migrating flock of the birds in the Eastern U.S. Wildlife experts hope this’ll be the year the effort will produce its first successful hatch of a crane egg. The GLRC’s Chuck Quirmbach reports:
Transcript
Dozens of whooping cranes are heading north this spring, as an
experiment continues to develop a migrating flock of the birds in the
Eastern U.S. Wildlife experts hope this’ll be the year the effort will
produce its first successful hatch of a crane egg. The GLRC’s Chuck
Quirmbach reports:
About sixty of the endangered whooping cranes migrate between the
southeastern U.S. and northern states like Wisconsin and Michigan.
Last summer, for the first time, a few cranes paired off and produced
eggs, but the cranes didn’t stay near their nests and predators destroyed
the eggs.
Rachel Levin of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says this year she’s
more optimistic the cranes will reproduce.
“We have cranes this year that are going to be five years old. Whooping
cranes reach sexual maturity between three and five years old. So, we
are hoping this year that we have cranes that will produce eggs and that are
maybe mature enough this year to stay with those eggs and do their
parental duty.”
One goal of the crane reintroduction project has been to have 25 adult
breeding pairs. For now the project will continue to add to the flock by
bringing in crane chicks from Maryland.
For the GLRC, I’m Chuck Quirmbach.