Post by Woody Williams on Oct 14, 2005 10:41:26 GMT -5
Whooping crane expedition ready to launch
-Endangered bird flock should pass through Indiana on way to Florida
-Mission has enough gas to make it to Kentucky
Operation Migration hopes to launch the 2005 whooping crane migration flight on Friday, Oct. 14. During the flight, young endangered whooping cranes
learn traditional migration routes by following ultralight planes from northern Wisconsin to Florida.
"If the weather turns out as forecast, the launch will be quite a spectacle -- five ultralights and 20 Whooping cranes," said expedition leader and pilot Joe Duff.
Duff says recent hurricanes have diverted funding and increased costs. "The soaring cost of fuel, increased expenses, the large number of birds we have this season and resulting added staff needed, have made it very difficult to raise enough funds to keep us going.
"We have enough funding in place to get us almost to the Kentucky/Tennessee border before we run out of gas -- figuratively and literally," said Duff.
This year's flight is the fifth of similar flights designed to restore migratory populations of the endangered birds. Past routes led the team through approximately 14 Indiana counties with three overnight stops.
Follow flight progress or donate at:
www.operationmigration.org/index.html
Researchers are working to restore flocks of whooping cranes that will spend summers near Necedah National Wildlife Refuge in central Wisconsin, and migrate to Chassahowitzka National Wildlife Refuge in Florida.
In the first five years of the program, approximately 60 birds have been taught a migration route between Wisconsin and Florida. This is 4 times the number of whoopers that existed in the early 1940's.
The birds have been returning to Wisconsin in the spring on their own.
Whooping cranes are the tallest birds in North America standing 5 feet tall with a 7- to 8-foot wingspan. Whooping cranes mate for life and can live 25
years or more in the wild.
Like many birds, whooping cranes learn their migration route by following their parents. But this knowledge is lost when the species is reduced and there are no longer any wild birds using the flyway.
Until Operation Migration was asked by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to spearhead a reintroduction of the world's most endangered cranes, there was
no method of teaching migration to captive-reared whooping cranes released into the wild.
Operation Migration works in partnership with nine private and government agencies known collectively as the Whooping Crane Eastern Partnership.
-Endangered bird flock should pass through Indiana on way to Florida
-Mission has enough gas to make it to Kentucky
Operation Migration hopes to launch the 2005 whooping crane migration flight on Friday, Oct. 14. During the flight, young endangered whooping cranes
learn traditional migration routes by following ultralight planes from northern Wisconsin to Florida.
"If the weather turns out as forecast, the launch will be quite a spectacle -- five ultralights and 20 Whooping cranes," said expedition leader and pilot Joe Duff.
Duff says recent hurricanes have diverted funding and increased costs. "The soaring cost of fuel, increased expenses, the large number of birds we have this season and resulting added staff needed, have made it very difficult to raise enough funds to keep us going.
"We have enough funding in place to get us almost to the Kentucky/Tennessee border before we run out of gas -- figuratively and literally," said Duff.
This year's flight is the fifth of similar flights designed to restore migratory populations of the endangered birds. Past routes led the team through approximately 14 Indiana counties with three overnight stops.
Follow flight progress or donate at:
www.operationmigration.org/index.html
Researchers are working to restore flocks of whooping cranes that will spend summers near Necedah National Wildlife Refuge in central Wisconsin, and migrate to Chassahowitzka National Wildlife Refuge in Florida.
In the first five years of the program, approximately 60 birds have been taught a migration route between Wisconsin and Florida. This is 4 times the number of whoopers that existed in the early 1940's.
The birds have been returning to Wisconsin in the spring on their own.
Whooping cranes are the tallest birds in North America standing 5 feet tall with a 7- to 8-foot wingspan. Whooping cranes mate for life and can live 25
years or more in the wild.
Like many birds, whooping cranes learn their migration route by following their parents. But this knowledge is lost when the species is reduced and there are no longer any wild birds using the flyway.
Until Operation Migration was asked by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to spearhead a reintroduction of the world's most endangered cranes, there was
no method of teaching migration to captive-reared whooping cranes released into the wild.
Operation Migration works in partnership with nine private and government agencies known collectively as the Whooping Crane Eastern Partnership.