Whooping Crane Update, July 11, 2008

The second cohort of Whooping Cranes arrived July 9 at the Necedah National Wildlife Refuge (NWR). The seven young cranes arrived by Windway Capital Corp. aircraft from the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center in Maryland.

The birds were given a health exam by Patuxent staff before departure and another checkup by ICF veterinarian staff upon arrival. These seven birds were joined by #11-08, one of the chicks who had sustained some injuries from crane #10-08--both #11-08 and #9-08 recovered very well at ICF.

Number 9-08 did not go back to Necedah to join the other cranes, instead #9-08 was returned to Patuxent. This crane was the first chick to successfully hatch from an older, captive female Whooping Crane. Number 9-08 will remain in the captive breeding population to help increase the genetic diversity of the population.

For those of you trying to keep track of how many 2008 cranes are currently at Necedah NWR, here are the box scores:

Cohort 1: Four cranes
Cohort 2: Seven cranes + #11-08
Cohort 3 will be arriving at Necedah later this month—there could be as many as seven birds in that shipment, for a grand total of 19 ultralight-led cranes.Nine additional Whooping Cranes will be arriving at Necedah NWR this month as part of the DAR (Direct Autumn Release) project. The DAR birds will be housed in a separate area of the refuge from the ultralight birds.

The possible combined total for this year’s release could be 28 Whooping Cranes!

Update by Joan Garland, ICF Education Outreach Coordinator.