Ultra crane experience moving closer

By David Horst  sandhill7@gmail.com 

Photo courtesy of operationmigration.org

Fox Cities residents soon will have less than an hour’s drive to watch big white birds following ultralight aircraft.

The Whooping Crane Recovery Team, which has been teaching captive-raised crane babies how to migrate to Florida from the Necedah National Wildlife Refuge in central Wisconsin since 2001, is not seeing the desired nesting success when the birds return to Necedah and is looking to give them a new summer home.

And the winner is … the White River Marsh Wildlife Area just west of Berlin in Green Lake County. 

It’s a 40-mile ride from Appleton, compared to the 100 miles to Necedah. Joe Duff, CEO of Operation Migration, the nonprofit that supplies the expertise, air power and parade of support vehicles for the crane training and fall migration, says his team has a memorandum of understanding in hand for use of the state land from the Department of Natural Resources and only a little red tape – such as verifying adequate insurance coverage – remains.

Necedah is beautiful and hosts three endangered species – whoopers, Karner Blue Butterflies and grey wolves. It’s just not serving the science. 

Inadequate food to build up fat reserves or cranes inexperienced at breeding are possibilities for the low reproduction, but the leading suspect is black flies. Anyone who has camped in the northern wilderness can understand how difficult it might be to sustain an interest in “nesting behavior” when you and your mate are covered with black flies. 

Duff said of the 128 known species of black flies, three target birds. Necedah has all three. So the partnership of various federal, state and Canadian wildlife agencies went looking for a new site, not too far away, but out of the range of the most problematic black flies. 

The White River Marsh meets all of the technical requirements, according to Jeb Barzen, director of field ecology at the International Crane Foundation in Baraboo, who chaired the research and science team for the site search. 

Scientists, ultralight pilots and big white birds will move into a large chunk of the 12,000-acre expanse of swamp and savannah, which was recommended for state protection in the 1940s by environmental father figure Aldo Leopold. Back then it had prairie chickens and quail. 

Operation Migration will have to work fast. They need to build a wet pen and a dry pen to protect the birds, as well as a runway and a camp for the crew. And the first batch of baby whoopers is scheduled to arrive in late June from the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center in Maryland. 

The Whooping Crane Recovery Team puts an extremely high premium on preventing the young crane trainees from encountering any human forms not dressed up in crane suits, so public access to some areas is certain to be restricted. For my money, people can find another swamp. 

This work with endangered cranes is so important and so downright amazing that hunters, hikers and trappers should yield the right of way. 

Folks I know in those parts say it already has become home for whooping cranes from the project who choose not to go back to Necedah. Those are not nesting birds, Barzen said. 

The magnificent sight of whooping cranes following tiny aircraft might have been even closer. The team studied seven locations, including the Wolf River Bottomlands near New London and the Lake Poygan area. Other leading contenders were Horicon National Wildlife Refuge and along the Fox River north of Portage. 

Barzen said researchers looked for areas of open water, appropriate vegetation, large enough expanses of land and distance from population centers. They compared the study areas to habitat know to be successful for whooping crane breeding. 

Cranes raised at Necedah to this point will remain there, with only new classes of chicks moving to White River Marsh. “I don’t know of any practical way to move the birds,” Barzen said. These birds, shown the way to Florida only once as adolescents, can navigate back to Necedah for a lifetime. 

“We hope not to start a new flock, but add to it and expand its range,” Duff added. Necedah, Berlin or Horicon – what’s most important is that this groundbreaking research is continuing and continuing in Wisconsin.