[TN-Bird] Are these OUR whoopers that were killed in Florida storms?
- From: Dthomp2669@xxxxxxx
- To: tn-bird@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 3 Feb 2007 16:26:41 EST
This came from Florida. Looks as if I lost TN-Birds while I was in the
hospital. Dee Thompson, Nashville, TN
Saturday, February 3, 2007, 5:52 am
By JAMES A. CARLSON Associated Press
Central Florida storms kill flock of endangered whooping cranes
MILWAUKEE -- All 18 endangered young whooping cranes that were led south
from Wisconsin last fall as part of a project to create a second
migratory flock of the birds were killed in storms in Florida, a
spokesman said.
The cranes were being kept in an enclosure at the Chassahowitzka
National Wildlife Refuge near Crystal River, Fla., when violent storms
moved in Thursday night, said Joe Duff, co-founder of Operation
Migration, the organization coordinating the project.
"The birds were checked in late afternoon the day before, and they were
fine," he said Friday.
The area of the enclosure was unreachable by workers at night, and all
the birds were found dead, Duff said. He speculated that a strong storm
surge drew the tide in and overwhelmed the birds. The official cause of
the deaths was not immediately known, but he said it may have been drowning.
The thunderstorms and at least one tornado that hit central Florida
caused widespread damage and killed at least 19 people.
For the past six years, whooping cranes hatched in captivity have been
raised at the Necedah National Wildlife Refuge in central Wisconsin by
workers who wear crane-like costumes to keep the birds wary of humans.
Ultralight aircraft are used to teach new groups of young cranes the
migration route to Florida. From then on, the birds migrate north in the
spring and south in the fall on their own.
Duff described the loss as an "unavoidable disaster" for the whooping
cranes project that ironically followed a milestone.
For the first time in six years, an entire group of young birds reared
at the Necedah refuge had made it to the Florida refuge without the loss
of a single crane.
The project's previous losses all involved individual birds killed by
predators or fatally injured in accidents.
"It's a fluke. It's an unforeseen thing," Duff said. "So many birds and
they were such good birds. It was our hardest migration and our most
difficult one to fund."
The various groups and agencies working on the project had seen the size
of the flock grow to 81 birds with the latest arrivals, but the loss of
the young cranes drops the total back to 63, and there may have been
additional losses.
Duff said there was no way of knowing whether other whooping cranes that
winter in the area had survived the storm.
Operation Migration is part of the Whooping Crane Eastern Partnership.
Partnership officials and Duff said the work would continue.
Members of the whooping crane recovery team were meeting in Louisiana
when the Florida storm occurred, going over the past year's progress and
setting goals for this year, when they learned what had happened, Duff said.
After the initial shock, "it just reinforced the support and
determination to get this done," he said.
The whooping crane, the tallest bird in North America, was near
extinction in 1941, with only about 20 left.
The other wild whooping crane flock in North America has about 200 birds
and migrates from Canada to the Texas Gulf Coast. A non-migratory flock
in Florida has about 60 birds.
--
Murray Gardler
9400 Merriweather Drive
Brooksvile, FL 34613-4271
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