Crane versus plane

An intrepid female crane led the insurgency that scuttled the always anticipated sojourn of whooping cranes to the marshes of Chassahowitzka National  Wildlife Refuge.

Associated Press

Three endangered whooping cranes, two immature birds, second and third from left and a mature, all white, right, walk among a flock of sandhill cranes Jan. 19 at the Wheeler Wildlife Refuge near Decatur, Ala. A conservation effort involving an ultralight plane leading endangered whooping cranes south for the winter has been forced to stop short of its Florida destination, with officials deciding Thursday to stay in Alabama.

This winter, after several hurdles that had the annual man-led migration from Wisconsin grounded in northern Alabama, a mutiny led by a female crane identified as No. 7 has ended the trip toward Florida.

It was announced Thursday that the nine migrating cranes will now be moved to Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge, some 60 miles from where the cranes have been stranded for weeks.

According to the Operation Migration website, the organization trying to forge an Eastern route for the endangered cranes, several attempts were made to head south to the cranes’ winter homes in Florida, but each time No. 7 would thwart their efforts.

The following is a firsthand account of the lead ultralight pilot trying to lead the formation out of
Alabama:

The climb was smooth and clean and the birds were strong and locked on as we inched up at a hundred feet per minute. We reached 600 feet and the thought crept into my head that maybe we were getting the break we needed so badly. Maybe that was all it took to ruin everything because for no reason at all, they broke. It wasn’t because they were falling behind or the climb was too much for them. And it wasn’t one of those tentative departures we so often see as the birds test their ability to take the lead and change the direction. Instead they peeled away like a fighter jet rolling into a dive.

I intercepted them and they followed me back on course. I hoped it was only a momentary lapse into old habits - but they broke again - and again. Brooke and Richard were getting farther away as I circled twenty times with the same result. When I would catch up to them and re-take the lead, it was always No.7 leading the V formation. At one point, when I placed my wing in front of her, she opened her beak and jabbed the wingtip in an angry challenge for the lead. She would follow for a while as long as we were heading in the direction she chose, but even then she would break and take the rest of the flock with her in sheer defiance of the aircraft.

I tried to dethrone her by pushing her out of the lead with my wing, but the second in command was #5, and he was just as bad. After what felt like a hundred attempts, I tried to lead them back to the field and land. I planned for Geoff to put numbers 5 and 7 back in the pen and then to leave again with the others. As we passed overhead I began a descent, but they all kept going.

Afraid to get too far ahead with only two birds, Brooke and Richard came back to try and help. I caught No. 7 seven miles to the north and again took the lead, but each time she would steal them away and head north. I tried leading them east, then west, hoping they would eventually fall into line, but they would turn with such purpose it was obvious I had little authority. As I chased them, she would swing them around on a course due north.
Richard and Brooke joined the fray. We tried to coax them down to tree top level as if we were about to land. They would follow, looking down to see what field we had chosen. We hopped hills and trees leading them back to the pen but a mile out they recognized the ruse and broke again.

After two and a half hours we managed to bring them back to the pen one or two at a time. All except for No.10 who had enough after an hour and dropped into a pond like a helicopter. Caleb and Gerald picked him up and brought him back to the pen.

“It’s all kind of interesting, isn’t it,” Michael Lusk, the manager of the Crystal River National Wildlife Refuge said.

“Sometimes we try to mess with nature and this happens. But No. 7 was a feisty one, but sometimes when they are done, they are done and that is what seems to have happened here,” Lusk said.

Lusk said while it will be unfortunate that cranes will not make it to the area this year, the most important thing is the safety and survival of the cranes.

The pilots and young whooping cranes were grounded in December in northwestern Alabama because of a Federal Aviation Administration investigation into the use of ultralight aircraft which are used to help guide the avian flyers.
Operation Migration pays its pilots for flying the crafts, but FAA rules say they are sport planes and therefore can only be flown for personal use.

FAA officials notified the conservation group’s pilots in late November that the agency had opened an investigation. Just before Christmas, Operation Migration voluntarily grounded the plane and the birds in northwestern Alabama — more than halfway to their destination.

The FAA eventually granted a waiver to Operation Migration, a conservation organization. The group is trying to re-establish an Eastern flyway or route for whooping cranes by teaching young birds how to make the flight.
The Chassahowitzka National Wildlife Refuge and the St. Mark’s National Wildlife Refuge in Wakulla County are the destinations the flyers and their young students are trying to reach.

Most of the whooping cranes spend the summer in central Wisconsin, where they use areas on or near Necedah National Wildlife Refuge, as well as other public and private lands.

Whooping cranes were on the verge of extinction in the 1940s. Today, there are only about 570 birds in existence, approximately 400 of them in the wild, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Whooping cranes, named for their loud and penetrating unison calls, live and breed in wetland areas, where they feed on crabs, clams, frogs and aquatic plants. They are distinctive animals, standing five feet tall, with white bodies, black wing tips and red crowns on their heads, according to U.S. Fish and Wildlife.

Ten cranes left Wisconsin this fall. But one young bird detoured and was later found  with a flock of migrating sandhill cranes in Florida.

Chronicle reporter A.B. Sidibe can be reached at 352-564-2925 or asidibe@chronicleonline.com.