Six Whooping Crane Chicks Arrive in Wisconsin for Ultralight Training
The Whooping Crane Eastern Partnership (WCEP) is pleased to announce that this year’s group of birds that will follow the ultralight planes to Florida has safely arrived in Wisconsin from the U.S. Geological Survey’s Patuxent Wildlife Research Center in Laurel, MD. As with last year, they were taken to the White River Marsh State Wildlife Area in Green Lake and Marquette Counties. This is only the second year that this new site has been utilized. The cranes will spend the summer with Operation Migration staff getting acclimated, gaining strength, and learning to follow the planes. This fall, Operation Migration will guide the young birds on their first southward migration to the Gulf coast of Florida, the cranes’ winter home. These birds represent a portion of the 12th group of endangered whooping cranes to take part in a project conducted by WCEP, a coalition of public and private organizations that is reintroducing a migratory flock of whooping cranes into easte...