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Whooping Crane Egg Score Card 2016

Whooping Crane building a nest at the International Crane Foundation.Our captive Whooping Cranes are laying eggs – breeding season is here!

A tradition at the International Crane Foundation is to follow our “Egg Score Card,” which tracks the Whooping Crane eggs from our captive flock and wild nests in Wisconsin.

We’ll be posting updates to our score card on our website, Facebook, and Twitter, so check back often in the coming weeks to view our progress.  Click here to learn more about Whooping Cranes.

Whooping Crane eggs laid at the International Crane Foundation (Final update 6/22/16)

Total eggs laid: 38; plus 2 eggs transferred from Calgary Zoo

Too soon to tell if fertile: 0

Fertile: 15 (2 transferred to Patuxent Wildlife Research Center in Maryland and have hatched; 1 not viable)

Infertile: 18

Broken: 5


Hatched: 10 – our first chick, “Arches,” hatched on May 14, followed by Sequoia (5/16), Mammoth (5/17), Zion (5/21), Denali (5/25) – unfortunately we lost Denali in early June – Bryce (5/26), Rainier (5/27), Smokey (6/2), Bowie (6/8), and Kenai (6/18)! In celebration of the 100th anniversary of our National Parks, our 2016 chick names represent these special places. Note that the number of hatched chicks is included in the above fertile total.

Three of our chicks are being parent-reared by adult Whooping Cranes for release later this year in Wisconsin, and six are being costumed-reared by our staff — four are slated for release in Louisiana and two chicks will remain in captivity for future breeding.


Wild Whooping Crane nests in Wisconsin (8/8/16)

The first wild Whooping Crane chick hatched in Wisconsin on May 2 to pair 13-03/9-05 (view our post on the first hatch)! Today’s aerial survey flights by our partners at the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources confirmed our current total two remaining chicks.

Pairs with chicks:

29-09/12-03 with one chick (W7)

1-04/8-05 with one chick (W9)