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Bobcat likely culprit in death of rare crane

The remains of the whooping crane was found Sunday, and it may have been killed as early as a week ago.

One of the whooping cranes raised in Wisconsin as part of efforts to establish a new migratory flock of the endangered birds has been found dead in Florida, apparently killed by a bobcat, officials say.

Operation Migration, the nonprofit group that has coordinated the project, said Lara Fondow of the Baraboo, Wis.-based International Crane Foundation recovered the remains of the whooping crane Sunday.

The bird was about a mile outside a winter pen set up for the cranes at the Chassahowitzka National Wildlife Refuge north of Tampa.

The crane was hatched in May 2002.

That was the second year of the fall migratory flights when ultralight aircraft lead young cranes from Necedah National Wildlife Refuge in central Wisconsin to Chassahowitzka. The cranes that successfully make the journey then migrate north in the spring and south in the fall on their own.

According to Operation Migration, the crane that died had returned to the pen site at the refuge Jan. 29, but other cranes that were already there chased her away.

Caretakers at the site last spotted the crane in the air Feb. 1 as a male crane was chasing her toward a location near where she was later found. The crane apparently was killed by a bobcat last Tuesday or Wednesday.

The bird was fitted with a radio transmitter, and Fondow had detected signals Friday indicating likely mortality, officials said.

There now are 46 whooping cranes in the eastern migratory population, including 29 males and 17 females, Operation Migration said on its Web site.

The only other migrating flock of whooping cranes has about 200 birds. They fly from Canada to winter on the Texas Gulf Coast.

The whooping crane was near extinction in 1941, with only about 20 left.

[Last modified February 8, 2005, 00:21:16]