Whooping Crane Migration

A new flock of Whooping Cranes is migrating between Wisconsin and Florida, with the help of surrogate parents.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• bird
• migration
• whooping
• crane
• birds

[revenaaaant]

i want to see a crane one day in Milwaukee....

[Inquisitor53]

@elishot

1.On your channel.

2. Then why lie?

[elishot]

@Inquisitor53

Where did I say I was 45?

I'm only responding cuz i wanna know where you got that number from. By the way, my original comment was intentionally false.

[NordicHealer]

@Inquisitor53 Thank you Inquisitor53 for taking the time and trouble to explain in great detail what happened in FL. I can only hope and pray future fledglings will survive in greater numbers to help rebuild the population of these Magnificant birds back to safer margins.

[Inquisitor53]

@Inquisitor53 one crane short. After checking the leg bands they knew which bird it was and informed the media. Well since the story was already out most of them corrected their error. A few, especially those in television, didn't run the story (I suspect they didn't want to look bad in front of the audience due to their premature error).

If any of what I've written here is incorrect please inform me, but to the best of my memory this chronical is true and in the correct order.

[Inquisitor53]

@Inquisitor53 the endof the runway, put on their crane suits and had to crate the bird. I know this because I was there watching it.

At Chassahowitzka on the eve of the storm it refused to fly back to the enclosure. So when the team found all the birds dead in the pen that morning they assumed all the fledgelings had drowned before taking a count of them. The press ran with the story before all the birds were counted (so typical of them). However, when the team counted the birds the were...

[Inquisitor53]

@Inquisitor53 ...emergency gates that automatically releases the cranes when the water reaches a certain level on the pens at both sites, allowing the cranes to escape.

Now as to the one survivor... The team always had trouble with that bird starting from when the first landed in Florida. It always wanted to stay where the planes would land. By the time of the Dunellon Airport flyover it decided to land at the south end of the runway and wouldn't fly any further. The team had to drive to...

[Inquisitor53]

@Inquisitor53 ...their own lives. I salute them for their bravery. Not all was lost; they learned some valuble lessons from it.

They learned to (parden the metaphor) not put all their eggs, or in this case fledgelings, in one basket, or in this case, one site. The flock is now split up when the flock gets close to the GA / FL stateline. Half the flock is then led to St. Marcos or St. Marks NWR in the florida panhandle, the other half toward Chassahowitzka NWR.

They also have installed...

[Inquisitor53]

@Inquisitor53 ...several more feet of water into the area. Again they might have been able to suvive that it if were the only factor but...

3. The top of their enclosure was covered over to prevent bobcats and other predators from feeding on the cranes. Unfortunately, it also prevented them from escaping the rising waters. Ergo, they drowned.

I give credit to those caring for the cranes. They went out in that storm in an extremely brave effort to save the cranes, without regard for...

[Inquisitor53]

@NordicHealer They didn't die from the cold, and one did survive. Those that died did so due to several unfortunate circumstances.

They were:

1. An astronomical high tide that night, raising the water level a few feet. Being that their pen is located in a low-lying esturine marsh the cranes gotten their feet and legs wet but if it were only that alone they would've survived.

2. A very powerful cold front with extreme winds & rain moved through west-central Florida that night pushing...