“A small flock of year-old whooping cranes led south by an ultralight aircraft has been wiped out by violent storms that swept over their habitat in the Florida salt marshes.
The 18 birds were raised in a Wisconsin sanctuary and left last fall on a 2,000-kilometre migration that took 78 days.
“They were strong and healthy birds, and they’re all gone now,” said Joe Duff, one of the lead ultralight pilots and co-founder of Operation Migration. …
Read the story in the Toronto Star here: http://www.thestar.com/News/article/178087
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
“Duff speculated (from Ontario Canada) that a strong storm surge drew in the tide and overwhelmed the birds in their enclosure at the Chassahowitzka National Wildlife Refuge”.
Does this mean that these $90,000 each birds were in a cage and were drowned? Does this mean the enclosure had a mesh roof and some bozo left them there to drown on a king tide?
Are there 18 bodies or did the birds just escape to better shelter? There is a lot more to this story yet.
Perhaps they could replace them with new birds by going to E-Bay where there is “everything to do with whooping cranes” items (see side advertisement). I’m not sure about the used cranes though, but maybe that’s where the dead ones end up?
Of course it is a tragic loss to the wild population of this species, and I’m sure the people who are obviously so dedicated to these birds are devastated. I don’t think they would have bozos working for them Ian, so maybe don’t be so judgemental.
There is a similar project in Sweden on endangered Arctic Snow Geese and the use of ultralight aircrafts for learning them their migratory patterns…it’s kind of cool!
The paper stated that ” the birds have never heard a human voice”.
Well, don’t know how they do with the cranes, but in the Arctic Snow Geese project, the birds are used to humans…
It is kind of fascinating how they learn the birds to follow the ultralight aircraft.
Already in the eggs , the birds are learned to listen to the sound of a ” trumpet”, they will then be imprinted by this sound and follow the ” honk, honk”sound made by the trumpet in the air.
Hi Ann,
Long time no hear from you. Do they have a good success rate with the snow geese?
Hi Libby,
Good to hear from you…
The ” Arctic Snow Geese” correct name is the Lesser white-fronted goose and the project has been considered as a success. Survival rate seems to be about 50%.
Many of these geese wintering grounds are in the Black Sea area are but hard hunting pressure has decimated the stock.
Now conservationists are looking for new wintering grounds in the Netherlands, Germany and Belgium for these geese.
Either you can use ” foster parents” , in this case barnacle geese, or you could use ultralight aircraft.
I must also point out that the birds must keep their fear for humans intact, so in all contacts humans wear a ” predatory bird mask”.
Thanks Ann. I hope the alternative wintering grounds work out for the geese. The innovations some people come up with for conservation projects can be very inspirational.