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Cranes close a historic circle
By ALEX LEARY, Times Staff Writer A flock of whooping cranes that relied on man to show the way to Florida returned home to central Wisconsin on Friday, blazing an 11-day trail remarkable not only for its pace but for what it means for the future of the species.
"I was glad they finally touched down because I'm ready to collapse," said Richard Urbanek, a biologist who raced across the country in pursuit of the cranes, which are fitted with radio transmitters. "You could see all four of them silhouetted to the west. It was magnificent," said refuge manager Larry Wargowsky, who crouched in a bunker with a camera. A fifth crane, which fell out of formation over Tennessee, was unaccounted for as of late Friday but was said to be close to home. "It's a new day for conservation," declared John Christian of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Minneapolis. "With this reintroduction, we have shown we can take a fully endangered species and restore it back to the wild without conflict to humans and with maximum excitement." Last fall, eight cranes left Wisconsin, trailing the ultralight aircraft, bound for Florida. Seven made it to Citrus County, where two were eaten by bobcats. They made the return trip, all 1,175-miles, on their own, without the ultralights. The return trip represents the first time in more than a century whooping cranes have migrated in North America. Cranes learn how to migrate from older generations. But because but there are no migratory cranes in the east, this knowledge had been lost. So the captive-raised cranes were trained to follow ultralight aircraft, a method dramatized in the movie Fly Away Home. Building on the success of this inaugural flight, the Whooping Crane Eastern Partnership plans to repeat the trip at least four more times over the next four years, using new whooping cranes each time. Three chicks have already hatched in a Maryland laboratory, and 18 will make the trip to Florida this fall, twice as many as last year. The goal is to establish a flock of 25 nesting pairs. Only 400 cranes survive in North America, including a migratory flock that spends time between Canada and Texas and a captive flock in Kissimmee. Over the course of 50 days last fall, the cranes and ultralights, piloted by men in gray costumes, overcame high winds, rain and hail as they plodded south from the Necedah Refuge. The flock arrived in Citrus County on Dec. 3 and spent the winter in the salt marshes of Chassahowitzka National Wildlife Refuge, 65 miles north of St. Petersburg. Not long after, two of the cranes were killed by bobcats, reducing the flock to five. "It was a terrible feeling," said Jim Harris, president of the International Crane Foundation, based in Wisconsin. "Intellectually, I knew they were fragile but emotionally, it was tough." But the mood brightened on April 9 when the flock set off for home. For all the science that went into the project, how the cranes knew it was time to leave and how they knew to get back to Wisconsin is largely a mystery. "Their horizons are bigger than ours," said Joe Duff, one of the ultralight pilots. "We look at a little town and know how to get around. They look at half the continent the same way. That's what I think, anyway." As the flock cruised north, it never strayed far from the original migration route. But while the ultralights were reduced to trips of 45 miles or so, the cranes displayed surprising endurance, making several 200-mile legs and soaring for seven or eight hours a day. They flew even when conditions were marginal. "They embarrassed us," Duff joked. "It took us 50 days and $50,000. They did it in 11 days with no goodbyes and no bags." The trip was marked with only the slightest setback. As the flock crossed into Tennessee, a female known as No. 7 dropped out of formation. She never caught up but continued north into Wisconsin. Just how determined the birds were to get home was evident, researchers said, when the group of four reached Lake Michigan. A strong wind was pushing them east toward Michigan but they chose to fight the breeze and kept west, traveling over Chicago. Steven Kiecker, a 44-year-old textbook illustrator who lives in the Chicago suburb of Berwyn, had just returned home from work Tuesday when the birds flew over. "It was kind of like a falling star. You kind of realize what you saw and then, poof!, it's gone," he said. "It was really special." When he went into work the next day, Kiecker drew stares from some co-workers as he excitedly described his encounter with history. "They just don't know how rare those birds are," he said. Kiecker once joked that he would never be able to cross whooping cranes off from his bird watching book. No longer. Someday, everyone might be able to do the same.
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From the Times state desk Lucy Morgan
From the state wire
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Four of the cranes touched down at Necedah National Wildlife Refuge at 7:37 p.m., within a mile of where they learned to follow the ultralight aircraft that guided them south last fall.
