A century ago, whooping cranes were in a headlong dive toward extinction, and the big birds, white as new snow, were already ghosts in Illinois.
“Only a very few have been shot here,” grimly noted the 1892 book “Birds of Peoria and Tazewell Counties, Illinois.”
A vote last week by an obscure commission in Florida could lead to a wild, migrating flock of “whoopers” returning to Illinois and other Midwestern states, improving the odds that the magnificent, though nervous, 5-foot-tall bird can beat its brush with oblivion.
As early as 2001, scientists hope to use a squadron of four ultralight airplanes to lead young whoopers–fooled into thinking the planes are their parents–along a man-made migration route from Wisconsin through Illinois to Florida to establish a new flock.
“Unlike many birds, young cranes learn to migrate from their parents, but there aren’t any parents to teach them,” said Jim Harris, deputy director of the International Crane Foundation in Baraboo, Wis., a non-profit group participating in the effort.
The Florida Conservation Commission tentatively agreed Friday to accommodate a wintering flock of whooping cranes at Chassahowitzka National Wildlife Refuge’s sprawling, protected salt marsh near Tampa, allowing the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to proceed with a plan to establish a new population of the cranes.
After being nearly wiped out by the 1940s, 15 birds have produced 350 descendants living in the wild and in captivity. About half are in the one remaining wild, migrating flock, which flies through the Great Plains states each year from nesting grounds in northern Canada to a winter roost on the Texas coast.
Scientists fear that having just one wild, migrating population leaves the birds vulnerable to a catastrophic event that could halve the population and nudge the birds back toward extinction.
“If something happens to the wild population that winters in Texas, then we have nothing to fall back on,” said Tom Stehn, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s program manager for the whooping crane.
“All the birds are so concentrated,” Stehn said. “They come to a 35-mile stretch of the coast in Texas, and in the summer they go to a 50-mile stretch of river in Canada. Anything from oil spills to a late hurricane to a disease outbreak could wipe them out.”
For years, scientists have known they need at least one more migrating flock, and they tried to establish one in the Rocky Mountain states. That flock once numbered more than 30 whoopers, but the birds never bred and the flock has dwindled to just 3.
Political forces, as much as biological ones, doomed that project when Western states became rankled by the hunting and land-use restrictions that could accompany one of the most endangered creatures on Earth.
A non-migratory population now totaling 64 cranes has been established at Kissimmee Prairie in Florida. More than 100 others live at three breeding centers, including 30 whoopers at the crane foundation.
Because of the political problems in the West, the U.S. government is being careful in the East.
Starting this week, federal officials plan to formally approach conservation scientists in Illinois and other states along the migration route seeking support for establishing the new flock in the Midwest and Southeast.
Scientists are already enthusiastic about the prospect of the birds returning to Illinois airspace, if not the ground, on the flight to and from Wisconsin.
“As far as anyone has seen, whoopers do not like to fly over large bodies of water, so everybody is anticipating that they would fly around the bottom of the lake,” said Glen Kruse, endangered species program manager with the Illinois Department of Natural Resources.
“We keep our fingers crossed that they might at least drop in to feed, maybe even look for some nesting someday.”
The whooping crane was probably never a common bird. By some estimates, there were about 5,000 whoopers in North America at the outset of the 19th Century.
Like many other species, they were done in by a combination of hunting and loss of habitat. As the birds were being shot for their fine and fancy feathers, the marshes they depended upon were being drained for farmland.
Eventually, there were just 15 of the birds remaining, and the species seemed doomed. Neither the ivory-billed woodpecker nor the passenger pigeon had been able to recover when their populations became too small.
But scientists were able to learn enough about the birds to help protect them, and the species has been increasing its population for more than 50 years.
All the birds that remain, and every whooping crane in the future, will be descendants of those last birds. The whooping cranes are all so closely related that it lowers their chances of breeding successfully.
“We believe there is enough genetic material left, but the reduced genetics is a threat to the species,” Stehn said.
Now, all the birds in captivity are mated exclusively through artificial insemination, and captive birds’ eggs all spend time in an incubator to improve their chances of hatching.
The birds themselves are nervous and mistrustful. Nobody knows if they have always been that way, or if the traits were exaggerated by interbreeding.
“Think of all of your friends who could use Valium–that is a whooping crane,” said Scott Swengel, curator of birds at the International Crane Foundation. “They are like dachshunds or little poodles. They think that something bad is going to happen to them all the time.”
The birds are still so rare and precious that the attempt to reintroduce them will first be tried on the common sandhill crane.
If all the states between Wisconsin and Florida sign on, a group of sandhill chicks will be taught this summer how to follow an ultralight plane. Without natural parents around, the birds will imprint on the plane and pilot and follow the contraption like ducklings behind their mom.
Any humans, including the pilots, that interact with the birds will be hidden in bulky white suits that obscure their form, preventing the birds from becoming accustomed to people.
“We try to keep it as natural as possible,” said Joe Duff of Operation Migration, a Canadian group that will lead the flight.
In September, four planes from Operation Migration will begin the 1,200-mile journey, taking as long as two months. Reliant on calm skies, the planes can fly only a few hours after dawn before the sun begins to warm the air, stirring up thermals.
If all goes as planned, the same procedure will be tried in 2001 with up to 18 whooping crane chicks. In 10 years, scientists hope the flock will number 125, with at least 25 breeding pairs.
“They are one of the most inspirational stories of birds because they came so close to becoming extinct,” Swengel said. “If the coin got flipped 100 times, 70 of those times they would have gone extinct.”
WHERE WHOOPING CRANES LIVE AND MIGRATE
North America has one successful flock of migrating whooping cranes, and as early as 2001, scientists hope to use a squadron of four ultralight planes to lead a flock of young whooping cranes along a migration route through the Midwest to Florida.
Current migration route in western U.S.
Summering area
A. Wood Buffalo National Park
About 185 cranes arrive here in late spring to breed and raise their chicks.
Migration route
In mid-September, cranes begin a four- to six-week migration to their wintering area. They stop to eat and rest in areas free from humans.
Wintering area
Aransas National Wildlife Refuge
The 2,500-mile trip is complete upon reaching southern Texas.
New migration route proposed for Midwest
Summering area
A. Necedah National Wildlife Refuge
Migration route
Birds would be led west of Chicago and pass through northwest Indiana.
Wintering area
B. Chassahowitzka National Wildlife Refuge
Birds then would travel south to this refuge, which is home to a large salt marsh and remain until spring.
Source: International Crane Foundation.
Chicago Tribune/Melissa Nagy and David Jahntz.
– See microfilm for complete graphic.
