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Space Coast Birding & Wildlife Festival November 17-21, 2004 in Brevard County, Florida A celebration of birds and wildlife. |
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Space Coast Birding & Wildlife Festival November 17-21, 2004 in Brevard County, Florida A celebration of birds and wildlife. |
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North America's magnificent whooping cranes were once abundant throughout the continent, nesting in Illinois, Iowa, the Dakotas, and Minnesota, and northward through the prairie provinces of Canada, Alberta, and the Northwest Territory. At 5 feet, they are the tallest birds in North America, with a wingspan of over 7 feet. Whoopers are graceful flyers, elegant walkers, and picturesque dancers. Adult birds have beautiful snowy white plumage, with black outer wing tip feathers that are highly visible when their wings are extended. The top of a whooper's head is bright red and it has black cheeks, as well as black smudging across the back of its head. Whooping cranes have bright yellow eyes and grayish black feet and legs. Their distinctive trumpeting call can be heard from well over a mile away.
Clearing and drainage of areas for farming destroyed the whooper's habitat and hunting reduced their numbers. By 1941, only 15 individual birds remained in the wild. Surviving whoopers nested far from human disturbance in Canada's Northwest Territories. Following its drastic decline, the whooping crane then became a symbol of conservation in North America. Due to excellent cooperation between wildlife agencies in the United States and Canada, this critically endangered species is recovering from the brink of extinction, with more than 500 birds now prospering in various locations.
Despite progress made in increasing the numbers of whooping cranes, only one population maintains its numbers by rearing chicks in the wild. This flock now numbers 195 birds that nest in Wood Buffalo National Park in northwestern Canada. They spend the winter along the Gulf Coast of Texas, primarily in or near Aransas National Wildlife Refuge. These whoopers are especially vulnerable on their wintering grounds where a hurricane could kill birds and destroy their habitat or an oil spill could wipe out their food supply. In addition to the single self-sustaining wild population, there are 119 birds in captivity at seven locations. Two other wild populations began as experiments to ensure that whooping cranes continue to survive in their natural habitats. Most of the young whoopers produced in captivity this year will be released into the wild this fall as part of the two experiments.
In the first experiment, begun in 1993, juvenile captive-reared cranes were released in the Kissimmee Prairie of Central Florida. Additional young cranes are released there each year. This is a cooperative effort by U.S. and Canadian federal agencies, the state of Florida, and the private sector in order to start a population of whoopers that does not face the hazards of migration. Young cranes must learn a migration route from their parents. The Florida cranes were raised in captivity and did not learn to migrate. There are 82 cranes in this flock, including 17 adult pairs. These non-migratory whoopers live among alligators, armadillos, wild hogs, bobcats, and other unique Florida residents.
In 1997, Kent Clegg taught captive-reared whooping cranes to fly and follow a small aircraft. He led them on an 800-mile migration from Idaho to New Mexico. Kent's technique was then used in the second experiment to establish a population of cranes that nests in Wisconsin and migrates to western Florida. U.S. and Canadian federal agencies, provincial and state governments, Operation Migration, Inc., and other private sector groups are cooperating in this experiment. In December 2001, after an exciting journey, the first whoopers trained to follow an ultra-light aircraft landed at Chassahowitzka National Wildlife Refuge on Florida's central west coast 48 days and 1218 miles from their starting point. Six months later, they returned to Necedah National Wildlife Refuge in Central Wisconsin on their own in only 7 days. The following spring, they returned to Florida, becoming the first successful migrating whooping cranes east of the Mississippi River in more than 100 years! The western Florida flock now contains 36 cranes and more will be added this fall when another group of young whoopers will follow an ultra-light south to their winter home in the Sunshine State.
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