Why North America’s Gangliest Bird Is Hitching a Ride With the Coast Guard

Why North America’s Gangliest Bird Is Hitching a Ride With the Coast Guard

Whooping cranes are on the move, because of budget cuts.

BY JESSICA LEIGH HESTER 

OCTOBER 09, 2018

AT FIVE FEET TALL AND a whopping 17 pounds, whooping cranes are one of North America’s biggest, heftiest birds. They have their majestic moments, but they’re also rather gangly and awkward. Their spindly legs trail after them in flight, their call sounds like a mangled bugle, and their black wingtips appear to splay out, like a gloved dancer’s spirit fingers.

This week, 33 of the rare birds are migrating, but they’re not using those wingtips. They’re flying with the U.S. Coast Guard from Maryland to Louisiana, where they will settle into a new home at the Freeport-McMoRan Audubon Species Survival Center. (A handful of them will eventually reside at some Texas zoos.)

Over the past two centuries, the cranes have had a rough go of it. Their range once stretched from Alberta, Canada, to the southern shore of Lake Michigan, with winter colonies in Mexico and on Texas’s Gulf coast, and scattered clusters elsewhere. They breed in the shallows of grassy wetlands, and as those landscapes shrank, so did the flocks. In the mid-20th century, when there were fewer than two dozen of these birds left in the wild, the species came vanishingly close to oblivion.

To keep the population aloft, teams at the U.S. Geological Survey’s Patuxent Wildlife Research Center in Maryland have spent the last five decades breeding and rearing the birds. They began with eggs collected in Canada’s Wood Buffalo National Park. Ever since, the goal has been to stabilize the population and prepare their feathered charges to leave the nest without too much human-ness rubbing off on them. The surrogates raised roughly 30 chicks a year with the help of some unorthodox tactics, including donning crane costumes, using bird puppets, and teaching fledglings to flybehind an ultralight aircraft. The project’s $1.5 million budget was a casualty of federal cuts last year, and now the remaining birds are en route to new homes.

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How to improve habitat conservation for migrating cranes

Date:  April 18, 2018

Source:  American Ornithological Society Publications Office

Every year, North America's critically endangered Whooping Cranes travel back and forth along a 4,000-kilometer corridor linking their nesting grounds in Canada and their winter home in Texas. Habitat in their path through the northern Great Plains is being lost at an alarming rate to agriculture and other development, but the birds' widely dispersed movements make identifying key spots for protection a challenge. Now, researchers behind a new study from The Condor: Ornithological Applications have created a model of Whooping Crane habitat use with the potential to greatly improve the targeting of conservation efforts during their migration.

Researcher Neal Niemuth and his colleagues used a database of Whooping Crane sightings in the region since 1990 to examine cranes' habitat use in North and South Dakota. Analyzing the spatial patterns of the sightings, they found that Whooping Cranes prefer habitat that includes a mix of croplands and wetlands and are more attracted by a single large wetland basin than multiple smaller basins. Their results also show the effects of different conservation strategies across the region. East of the Missouri River, where efforts have been specifically targeted toward waterfowl conservation, lands under conservation management were more likely than other locations to be used by Whooping Cranes. West of the river, however, this was not the case.

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Cranes have childhood sweethearts who they flirt with for YEARS before becoming life-long partners as adults

Experts monitored 58 breeding pairs of the endangered species in Wisconsin 

Almost two thirds got together before at least one of them was sexually mature

Scientists believe there are benefits to the birds of long-term monogamy

This includes coordinating food foraging and protection from predators

By Tim Collins For Mailonline

PUBLISHED: 17:06, 23 November 2017 | UPDATED: 17:10, 23 November 2017

Rare whooping cranes often have childhood sweethearts.  

Almost two thirds of breeding pairs get together before at least one of them is sexually mature, a new study shows.

Experts believe the finding demonstrates that there must be benefits to the birds of favouring long-term monogamous relationships.

The Whooping Crane is one of the rarest North American birds. 

It is a long-legged, wading bird that is related to Rails, a group of small, secretive, marsh birds.

Adult birds are mostly white, with black extending the length of their outer wing feathers. Their crown is dark red, and a black 'moustache' extends from the bird's bill to the lower face. Their overall shape is reminiscent of a heron or egret, but more robust.

Never an abundant species, the total population had dwindled, due to hunting pressures and habitat loss, to a low of 16 birds in 1941. 

Today, there are only thought to be 612 captive and wild birds in existence, although their numbers are increasing.

A team of researchers, led by the University of Georgia in Athens, tracked a group of endangered whooping cranes that was reintroduced to the eastern United States in 2001.

Each bird in this Wisconsin based population is fitted with a transmitter, allowing experts to track their movements.

As part of their courtship rituals, the cranes perform loud calls as well as jumping and flapping their wings.

Of the 58 breeding pairs monitored, 62 per cent began mixing with each other at least one year before they mated, according to reports in New Scientist.

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Rare Whooping Cranes visit Medstead

Corrina Murdoch , Correspondent / Battlefords News-Optimist

April 25, 2017 12:49 PM

The majestic Whooping Crane, currently on the endangered species list, paid the beautiful RM of Medstead a special visit April 18, and they seem to be stick around. These birds have been on the endangered list for many years now, with population numbers having dipped as low as 21 in 1941. Currently, according to Nature Canada, the population has risen to a global total of roughly 300. It is hoped that this number will continue to rise.

Though the rising population is seen as hopeful, the cranes do not have their future guaranteed. Their numbers have been growing gradually over the years, but the birds are very sensitive to human interaction and have been in an uphill battle over the last few decades. Various conservation groups are very vocal as to the need to keep these glorious creatures protected.

Whooping cranes are the tallest birds in North America at almost one and a half meters in height. They boast an ability to fly without stopping for ten hours, covering over seven hundred kilometers. During migration, this species is known to eat grain from farm crops. Perhaps this is why they were seen in the thriving farmland of the RM of Medstead.

Part of the magic lies in the fact that, though Saskatchewan has been a breeding ground for these creatures in the past, they have mostly been seen in the area of Midnight Lake, near Glaslyn. Reportedly, however, their primary locations are Wood Buffalo National Park (near the Alberta-Northwest Territories border) and down to the Texas Gulf Coast for their wintering. It is a special treat when any person has the chance to see these rare birds. 

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Whooping cranes

Wednesday, March 2, 2016

Christopher Joyce / NPR

Biologists hoping to bring endangered whooping cranes back from the brink started an experimental flock in 1967 at the U.S. Geological Survey's Patuxent Wildlife Research Center in Laurel, Md.

When a whooping crane stands up, you notice. At 5 feet in height, it's America's tallest bird. Its wingspan is more than 7 feet, its body snowy white, its wingtips jet black.

By the 1940s, the birds had nearly gone extinct. Biologists have worked hard to bring them back, by breeding whoopers in captivity and releasing them in the wild. There are now several small wild populations in the U.S.

Perhaps the most remarkable is the eastern group. For 15 years, biologists have been teaching some of the young cranes to migrate between Wisconsin and Florida by leading them with an ultralight, one-person aircraft.

Now, however, biologists have discovered that teaching the cranes to migrate seems to have created serious problems for the birds — they rarely reproduce successfully. The Federal Fish & Wildlife Service has halted the flights and is now trying to figure out what went wrong.

The irony here is that the migration project, a leap of faith and a scientific gamble, worked.

It was a terribly difficult experiment. Biologists breed the birds at the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center in Laurel, Md. Every person involved wears a long white coat and a hood. They even wear phony beaks. The aim is to keep the young birds from imprinting on people — seeing their human caretakers as parents. Instead, the researchers want the birds to consider the ultralight aircraft and its pilot, also costumed like a bird, as their leader. To that end, while still very young, the whooping cranes are introduced to the plane on the ground and encouraged to follow it and its pilot around.

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Growing up without parents makes endangered birds more flexible

Date:October 21, 2015

Source:Central Ornithology Publication Office

This is it, kids: official permission to stop listening to what your parents tell you--but only if you're a bird. Many animal parents spend time teaching their young about how to find food and avoid danger, and this usually gives a big boost to their offspring. In a Commentary forthcoming in The Condor: Ornithological Applications, however, Vladimir Dinets of Louisiana State University makes the case that when environmental conditions change, relying on their parents' way of doing things can actually hinder, not help, young cranes.

Only one remaining population of Whooping Cranes is completely descended from wild birds raised by their parents. On both their breeding grounds in Canada and their wintering grounds in Texas, they're very picky about what habitat they use, sticking to a certain type of wetland, and each generation teaches its young to do the same; historically, this type of habitat must be where they've had the most success. However, when captive-reared Whooping Cranes, free of their parents' hang-ups, were released in Louisiana, they moved into a wide variety of human-modified habitats like agricultural fields and suburban ponds, and their flexibility has helped them succeed.

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Birds of a Feather: Whooping Cranes Need Parents More Like Them

By Megan Gannon, News Editor | October 06, 2014 09:55am ET

Whooping cranes have made an astonishing comeback in North America, thanks in part to some bizarre conservation methods. Over the past 13 years, dozens of cinnamon-brown chicks have been raised in captivity to be released into the wild, and they've learned their survival skills from biologists who dress up in vaguely birdlike costumes.

Strange as it sounds, this elaborate game of role-play has helped establish a new flock of whooping cranes that migrates each year from Wisconsin to Florida. But now, conservationists are faced with a conundrum: The birds raised by humans are turning out to be bad parents, and scientists don't know exactly where they're going wrong.

The people trying to save whooping cranes are now testing a new approach: They're matching some chicks with adult bird parents that can hopefully step in where humans are failing. 

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Reward offered in hunt for killer of rare whooping cranes in Kentucky

By Laura Smith-Spark, CNN

January 16, 2014 -- Updated 1919 GMT (0319 HKT)

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

Wildlife officials seek the killers of two rare whooping cranes in Kentucky

The birds are thought to have been shot in the same incident in November

A reward is offered for information leading to those responsible for the crime

Whooping cranes are the most endangered of all of the world's crane species

(CNN) -- The hunt is on for the killers of two extremely rare whooping cranes, shot as they spent the winter in Kentucky.

The birds are thought to have been illegally shot in a single incident in November, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Kentucky Department of Fish & Wildlife Resources said Thursday.

Now a reward is being offered to help track down the killers.

Whooping cranes are the most endangered of all of the world's crane species, according to the release, and are protected under two federal laws.

Fewer than 500 of the long-legged birds live in the wild in the United States. Seven of them were in Kentucky this winter.

The first bird was reported injured on November 25 in Hopkins County, the news release said. Two days later it was rescued because it had become very weak, but its upper leg was shattered and it had to be euthanized.

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White: Ruling puts birds ahead of people

By Kathleen Hartnett White

Texas Public Policy Foundation

As Texas continues to endure widespread drought, a new man-made water shortage is percolating through the federal courts. An unusually, if not uniquely aggressive court ruling under the Endangered Species Act now collides with a vital state authority and the Fifth, 10th and 11th amendments of the U.S. Constitution. This decision elevates the needs of the Whooping Cranes above all Texans need for water.

On March 11, the federal district court in Corpus Christi ruled that Texas had violated the federal law by causing harm to the endangered whooping cranes who winter in San Antonio bay and the estuary of the Guadalupe River basin. If this ruling survives appeal, our state’s already formidable effort to increase available water supply becomes, by orders of magnitude, more challenging. Thankfully, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans on March 25 granted that state’s request to stay the district court’s order pending complete appellate review.

The court’s decision sunders the state’s long-recognized authority to allocate the water within its borders for beneficial human use — without federal interference. Such a primary state authority is recognized in most federal laws but not in the ESA.

According to Judge Janis Jack, the state’s past actions and inactions reduced freshwater inflows and thus reduced the main food source of the cranes. Rare among ESA rulings, the judge held that Texas’ implementation of state water law made the state liable for the deaths of – some 23 whooping cranes during the severe drought of 2008 and 2009.

Continued:  http://www.statesman.com/news/news/opinion/white-ruling-puts-birds-ahead-of-people/nW6tL/

Citizens asked to report sightings of whooping cranes

The Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation said in the past two weeks a very rare bird was spotted at Lake Overholser in Oklahoma City - an unusual location for the endangered whooping crane. 

Standing at nearly 5-feet tall, the whooping crane is the tallest bird in North America and can be seen passing through the state until mid-November.

The ODWC is asking state residents to report sightings of this rare bird.

“Just over 300 whooping cranes are en route from their nesting grounds in Canada to their wintering location along the central Texas coast," said Mark Howery, wildlife diversity biologist for the Wildlife Department.

Howery urges Oklahomans to keep watch for the cranes around shallow wetlands, marshes, river bottoms and partially-flooded pastures and grain fields in the western half of the state. 

Continued:  http://www.ardmoreite.com/article/20121029/NEWS/121029717/-1/Sports