Can Captive Whooping Cranes Raise A Chick for the Wild?

In two previous posts I’ve written about the methods that young captive-bred, costume-reared whooping cranes are released into the wild. The best known, the Ultralight Method by which young whoopers are taught a migration route by following ultralight aircraft has been used to build the Eastern Migratory Population (the EMP) of whooping cranes in Wisconsin, since 2000. There are 6 ultralight-trained whoopers this year that have already begun – their schedule dictated by the winds and weather – to follow the ultralights south.

Not so well-known, but very well-tested, the Direct Autumn Release method has been used since 2005, and has also added a significant number of cranes into the EMP. With this method young whoopers, after costume-rearing as tiny chicks at the International Crane Foundation, are released into the wild as young colts near adult cranes; it is hoped they will follow the adults on migration. There are eight DAR birds this year, currently being monitored at Horicon National Wildlife Refuge.

For the past three years a completely new experiment, known as the Parent-Reared Method for releasing chicks from the captive populations into Wisconsin, has been tried.

What’s this? At Necedah NWR: a temporary pen for the Parent-Reared Whooping Crane program. (USFWS photo, used with permission)

This Parent-Reared program originates from Patuxent Wildlife Research Center,  which is home to the original captive flock of whooping cranes. (Patuxent, in Maryland, is also where the ultralight chicks are hatched each year, and receive intensive training from the costume-rearing staff until they are old enough for their flight training with the ultralights in Wisconsin).

The Parent-Reared program was authorized for only three years, and involves only a handful of birds. Yet, in the future, according to Anne Lacey at the International Crane Foundation, it just might help the EMP reach the elusive goal of reproductive success.

But that’s getting ahead of the story for now. Here’s how the Parent-Reared release program was set up, and how it is working. In marked departure from both the Ultralight and the DAR programs, there are no costumed humans nurturing these young cranes. They did not hatch from eggs in man-made incubators, but instead from an egg that was incubated by their actual whooping crane parents.

After hatching, these chicks are reared by their whooper parents until they can fly. Once the chicks have fledged, the adult whooping cranes’ jobs are done, and the chicks are separated from them in preparation for their transfer to Wisconsin. Before the actual move, however, the 3 or 4 chicks – or colts (they are nearly adult-size now) – raised for this program are kept together at Patuxent, and given a bit of time to bond with each other.

They are then crated and flown here (to Wisconsin), Once here, and uncrated, they are kept together overnight at the International Crane Foundation. Meanwhile at Necedah NWR, a temporary pen has been set up for each crane near territory that is inhabited by an established pair of adult whoopers, in hopes that the adults will adopt the youngster and take it with them on migration.

At Necedah NWR: a parent-reared whooping crane, on the inside, will attract the notice of an adult whooper, on the outside.  (USFWS photo; used by permission)

Ann Lacey told me that sometimes this works like a charm. The adult pair take note right away that there is a new young colt on their territory, and seem to take a keen interest in it. When that happens they do quickly adopt it once it has been released from the pen (after just a few days). Other times the adult pair may simply tolerate the young bird, and not show a lot of interest, but will still allow it to hang around them.

Three new parent-reared birds have been released at Necedah this year. There were a total of just eight birds released through the parent-reared method in 2013 and 2014. Three of them died within a month of being released at Necedah, and five have survived to migrate and return to Wisconsin (and that’s twice, for the two surviving parent-reared birds from 2013).

A clear majority of these parent-reared birds are surviving, so there’s an affirmative answer to the question in the headline of this post “Can captive parent birds raise a bird for the wild?” It’s apparent they can. But here’s another question: how can these birds be the solution to the Wisconsin cranes’ reproductive success? Is the thought that they would be better parents?

And that brings up a number of other questions, including some about the Wisconsin cranes’ most recent breeding season. Sounds like questions for another post; I’ll just leave it there for now.

It’s a Wrap! Nesting Season 2015

Here is a comprehensive report – by the numbers – on nesting season 2015, and a status-report on the chicks that have hatched. This report will include 1.) a wrap up of the nesting season of the Eastern Migratory Population of whooping cranes (the EMP); 2.) the chicks that are hatching in Wisconsin at the International Crane Foundation; and 3.) the chicks that have hatched at Patuxent Wildlife Research Center that are designated for the ultralight training program.

Number One: The EMP

The 90-plus adults of the EMP have built 37 nests in the wild in Wisconsin this year – a true record breaking number of nests. The nesting occurred in and around Necedah National Wildlife Refuge; there were 27 nesting pairs; and 10 pair built two nests. The official term for that is “renesting.”

When I last reported on this wonderful nesting season (here, on June 5th) a total of 20 chicks had hatched and 14 had been seen alive on an aerial survey flight by Wisconsin DNR pilot Bev Paulan on June 2nd. At that point one or two of the renesting crane pairs were still incubating eggs.

A subsequent report on a June 8th aerial survey makes note of two more chicks that have hatched – thus a total of 22 chicks (another record!) have hatched in the wild in Wisconsin, and the nesting season is now complete. Of the 22, there were (as of June 8th) 11 confirmed surviving.

If that 50% survival rate seems like a shocking figure to you, a cautionary reminder is probably worth considering: that survival in the wild is fraught with challenges that can’t always be easily understood or documented. It’s also worth nothing that re-introducing a species into a habitat that it has long been absent from, as is being done with the EMP, has its own challenges. That part of the equation is being studied intently by the partners of the Whooping Crane Eastern Partnership for more precise answers to chick survival rate.

Keeping Score at the International Crane Foundation

ICF tracks the progress of both the wild whooping crane nests in Wisconsin and that of the eggs laid by the captive population in residence at ICF. It regularly updates the numbers that track that progress, at the Egg Score Card on their website.

At the International Crane Foundation this year, 36 eggs were produced – 6 were broken and 14 were infertile (so far; there is still one egg that remains in the category “too soon to tell if fertile”). Of the 15 fertile eggs, 1 was transferred to Patuxent Wildlife Research Center in Maryland, and 7 have hatched. There are 7 more to hatch (or 8, depending on the “too soon to tell” egg).

Bryant Tarr, Curator of Birds at ICF, is pleased with the way the hatching of eggs had proceeded this year. He explained that the single egg that was “transferred to Patuxent, was “an early one more suited in timing for hatching and rearing as an Ultralight bird.” As for the birds that are hatching at ICF, he said they “will be isolation reared and candidates for the DAR program. If all hatch and survive (doesn’t always happen of course)  we will end up with 10 chicks, and likely 2 of those will be held back for genetic reasons as future breeders.”

Note:  The graphic below published by the International Crane Foundation (and used by permission), is a good representation of all the steps that ICF takes to help bring about each new “next generation” of whooping cranes.

 

The DAR (Direct Autumn Release) method of releasing “isolation-reared” birds into the wild in late summer, near other cranes, has been used every year since 2005, with the exception of last year when there weren’t enough birds to warrant the program, which is dependent upon many hours of staff time from ICF.

I learned from Aviculturist Cyndie Gitter at a Chick Chat offered by ICF in late May that 5 staff members and 4 DAR interns will work intensely with the chicks this year, and they will have additional assistance from four crane conservation interns.

Meanwhile, at Patuxent Wildlife Research Center

I also learned from Cyndie Gitter, via the Chick Chat that as of late May, 15 chicks had hatched at Patuxent. Eight of them, she said, were “currently allocated to the ultralight program.” Now, apparently there are seven, and they’ve just been formally introduced to the world by Operation Migration (which will train them and lead them on migration in the fall) as the Class of 2015.

If you follow the link above you’ll see baby chick portraits of each one: Whooping crane #’s 1, 2, 3, 6, 8, 10, and 11 of 2015. They are already tall little birds, made of fluffy cinnamon feathers and long, twiggy legs. They are being trained at Patuxent to follow the “trike” – an ultralight without its wing. In two weeks they will be transferred to White River Marsh in Wisconsin.

News briefs: All about May, and more

Look here, at the end of every week, for a collection of short news items and links to stories, events, and issues regarding Wisconsin’s whooping cranes, conservation issues, get-outdoors opportunities, and, perhaps other nature-based happenings.

Eastern Migratory Population Update

The Whooping Crane Eastern Partnership has issued the newest population update for the EMP, a period covering March 1 to April 30, 2014. It finds, “93 birds in Wisconsin, 4 not recently reported, 1 suspected mortality, and 3 long-term missing” for a possible maximum of 101 cranes.

The Badger & the Whooping Crane had focused earlier this spring on the return of the youngest cranes to Wisconsin, the ones making their first, unaided migration north, and is happy to report now that three more have been accounted for since that earlier report. The International Crane Foundation posted on its Facebook page that DAR chick, Mork, has been reported in Green Lake County, and the newest WCEP Update reports the two parent-reared chicks, # 22-13 and #24-13 back in the state.

May is American Wetlands Month

See the website of the Wisconsin Wetlands Association to learn why wetlands matter. Or visit their Facebook page to see the many reasons to explore a wetland: “Reason #1: Wetlands are watershed workhorses.” And if you happen to have any great wetland photos you’d be willing to share, email them at programs@wisconsinwetlands.org

May is “Magnificent whooping Crane Month” at the Patuxent Research Refuge

A series of free public programs at the Patuxent Research Refuge in Maryland are planned as a celebration in May of Magnificent Whooping Crane Month. Migration stories will be shared by Brooke Pennypacker one of Operation Migration’s ultralight pilots, as the headline attraction for Saturday, May 17th. All the events (check them out at the Magnificent Whooping Crane Month link!) will be held at the National Wildlife Visitor Center, part of the Patuxent Refuge complex.

The 2014 Door County Festival of Nature, May 22 – 24

The Ridges Sanctuary is hosting the 12th annual Door County Festival of Nature. The celebration for 2014 will take place May 22, 23, and 24, and includes such diverse opportunities as a full-day birding outing on Washington Island, a chance to study lake ecology aboard a Great Lakes research vessel, a tour of the uninhabited, and usually-inaccessible Plum Island, and a tour of the certified-organic Waseda Farms.

The International Crane Foundation Celebrates Three New Honors

The Jerome J. Pratt Whooping Crane award has been presented to ICF Founder George Archibald by the Whooping Crane Conservation Association. ICF’s Dr.K.S. Gopi Sunder was one of five conservation biologists in India to receive the Carl Zeiss Conservation Award, and the International Institute of Wisconsin is presenting its Corporate Citizen Award to ICF on Saturday, May 3rd.

Where the Birds Are: Various Whooping Crane Populations Explained

When we speak or write about whooping cranes it’s always good to know which population of the  whoopers we’re referring to. Although there are only a small number of these big, wonderful North American birds alive today (approximately 400 in the wild, and near 200 in captivity), they are spread across a variety of habitats and locations.

Some are divided among 3 captive populations, and others are in groups designated by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service as “non-essential experimental populations.” And 250, or more, are in the one and only self-sustaining wild flock.

So you can see, when discussing whooping crane news, it’s helpful to know which of these groups of cranes is the one from whence the news is coming. Here at The Badger and the Whooping Crane, we’re most interested, naturally, in what’s happening with the whooping cranes that migrate from Wisconsin to Florida. Known affectionately at this blog as “our cranes”, or the “Wisconsin cranes,” their official designation is the tongue twister “non-essential, experimental Eastern Migratory Population (or, to simplify,  the EMP). Responsibility for the EMP cranes falls to the Whooping Crane Eastern Partnership, written about here earlier.

An adult whooping crane pair that live within the captive population at the International Crane Foundation in Baraboo, WI. (Photo by Joel Trick, used courtesy of WCEP

But the EMP cranes – “our cranes” – are just one part of the bigger picture for the whooping crane story, and a post clarifying the various populations seems overdue. So what follows is a description of each one – population by population.

The Wild Ones

Each whooping crane in existence today is derived from the one self-sustaining wild flock – which has been brought back, literally, from the brink. The birds in this population migrate between Canada’s Wood-Buffalo National Park in northern Alberta, and the Texas Gulf Coast, crossing the international border twice each year.

Aransas National Wildlife Refuge was established in 1937 to protect critical habitat for the endangered whooping crane. (Photo courtesy USFWS: Aransas NWR page: multimedia galleries)

This flock reached its historic low point during the winter of 1940-41 when only 15 birds were counted. Public education campaigns and conservation efforts intensified after that, and the numbers have crept back up – at a snail’s pace, but consistently upwards.

A long history of close cooperation between the wildlife agencies in both countries gets a lot of the credit for keeping the species alive.

A photo of Wood Buffalo National Park in northern Canada wheret he only self-sustaining natural flock of whooping cranes nests each summer. (Photo courtesy citizenshift.org)

My source for the historical data on this Aransas-Wood Buffalo flock, and for the next section on Captive Breeding is a “Status Survey and Conservation Action Plan” (Curt Meine and George Archibald, 1996).  It’s online at the Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center; you can also access it through a link on the International Crane Foundation’s whooping crane page.

Captive Whooping Crane Populations

A new tool was added to the efforts to help the whooping crane species survive in 1967 when a captive breeding program was put in place at the USFWS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center in Maryland.  The Canadian Wildlife Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service cooperated to remove single eggs from the nests of wild cranes (nests usually contain two eggs) on their Wood Buffalo NP breeding grounds and transfer them to Patuxent for hatching and raising.

This tray of whooper eggs has just come out of the incubator. The eggs will be examined, candled, and weighed to see how their development is progressing. Eggs lose weight during incubation as the chicks grow and use up yolk and fluid. But if an egg loses too much weight too quickly, it can be helped by special treatments or placed in a separate incubator that has a higher humidity level. (Photo by Nelson Beyer, USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center)

By 1975 the cranes that had hatched from the collected eggs, had begun to produce their own first eggs. In 1989 the captive breeding program was expanded to include the International Crane Foundation and in 1992 it expanded to the Calgary Zoo.

Today Patuxent and ICF remain the primary centers of captive breeding. The most recent numbers I could find, are from The Journey North website, dated August 30, 2011, which lists 75 whooping cranes in the captive population at Patuxent, including 15 breeding pair, and 37 cranes at ICF with 11 breeding pair.  Six breeding pair are listed at the Devonian  Wildlife conservation Center in Calgary, and there were also 1 breeding pair at the San Antonio Zoo, and 2 at the Audubon Species Survival Center in New Orleans.

USGS employee training baby whooping cranes to follow ultralight aircraft.
(Paul K. Cascio photographer USGS Multimedia Gallery)

The Experimental Populations

Once the captive breeding programs were well-established, the efforts for preservation of the whooping crane species shifted into a new gear.  The focus became all about restoring some of the captive-raised chicks into the wild.  But how?

Much thinking and experimentation has gone into these efforts. In their 1996 report (linked to above) Archibald and Meine wrote, “Teaching migration to young whooping cranes continues to be the most significant barrier . . .” to reestablishing whooping cranes in the wild.

Since then the method of leading an annual class of crane chicks from Wisconsin to Florida via ultralight aircraft has been perfected, and has become a major factor in building an Eastern Migratory Population of 100 birds. Although the EMP flock has – as yet – had little breeding success, it continues to grow through ultralight-led chicks. That method is now being supplemented with releasing captive-raised chicks with older cranes, too.

Ultralight training of juvenile whooping cranes in Wisconsin. (Photo courtesy, WCEP)

In addition to this one quite successful – if incomplete – re-introduction of whooping cranes in Eastern North America, the partners of WCEP continue with efforts to establish a non-migrating flock in the wild. From 1993 – 2004, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Committee worked with WCEP to introduce a non-migrating flock in central Florida, but problems with drought, predators, and reproduction have brought an end to the release of new cranes into this project. Since 2011 the focus for developing a non-migrating flock of whooping cranes has shifted to the wetlands of Louisiana. In partnership with the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, the fourth cohort of juvenile whooping cranes from Patuxent was released at the White Lakes Wetlands Conservation Area early this year.

A class photo! The entire gang of adolescent whooping crane chicks together at the USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center in Laurel, Md. The chicks, hatched and raised by USGS caretakers, are being released into the wild in Louisiana in February 2011. It is a milestone for the state and for the birds, which have not lived in the state since the 1950s. (Photo courtesy USGS)

Meet the Partners for Whooping Cranes

“It takes a village . . . , ” we often say, using those words to describe any complex project whether it’s raising a child, or building a house, or creating a new community organization. Or something else entirely.

When it comes to the efforts to restore an endangered species to a region from which it has long been absent, it takes a world of professionals and volunteers willing to go to extraordinary lengths to achieve the goal. In the case of the whooping cranes that are now being re-introduced into Wisconsin that “world” is made up of the Whooping Crane Eastern Partnership, a true partnership between public and private entities working to protect the whooping crane species.

Over the years people have opened their homes to others who are working directly with the cranes. Private individuals and entire businesses have opened their wallets. And it seems everyone who learns of them, has opened their hearts to the whoopers and their story of survival.

On it’s Who We Are webpage, WCEP lists literally dozens of private individuals, organizations and corporations, as well as a myriad of government agencies, as partners and supporters of this effort. A list of the nine original WCEP partners, and a minimalist description of each follows:

International Whooping Crane Recovery Team – This is the governing body charged with responsibility for the species, and comprised of 5 scientists from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and 5 from the Canadian Wildlife Service.

Private, Non-profit Organizations

International Crane Foundation – Founded in 1973 in Baraboo, WI, the ICF is dedicated to the conservation of all of the world’s 15 crane species, and preservation of their habitat.

National Fish and Wildlife Foundation – Established by Congress in 1984, NFWF is one of the world’s largest conservation grant-makers, having raised more than $1.4 billion in private contributions and grantee matching funds.

Natural Resources Foundation of Wisconsin – A non-profit organization based in Madison, WI, the foundation boosts private sector investment and involvement in Wisconsin’s natural resources.

Operation Migration – Every year since 2001, OM has imprinted a new generation of whooping crane chicks on its ultralight aircraft, and then led them from Wisconsin to Florida on their first migration.

Government Agencies

US Fish & Wildlife Service – This bureau within the U.S. Department of Interior, is charged with conservation and management of the nation’s fish and wildlife resources, and the protection of endangered species.

Patuxent Wildlife Research Center of the U.S. Geological Survey – Located in Laurel, MD., Patuxent raises about 2/3 of all whooping cranes raised for release to the wild, and provides research and logistical support for the Wisconsin release.

USGS National Wildlife Health Center – Founded in 1975, the NWHC, located in Madison, WI, is a biomedical laboratory dedicated to assessing the impact of disease on wildlife.

Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources – Wisconsin was the first state to officially partner with the WCRT and the USFWS in an effort to establish an eastern migrating population of whooping cranes, and has also supplied much of the environmental data used to assess the suitability of the Wisconsin sites for the cranes’ release.

You can read a more detailed description of the WCEP partners here, or visit each partner’s own website for information in-depth.