When a young whooping crane took flight for the first time over a suburban marsh in central Florida on June 7, it made history. The bird, named Lucky by researchers, is the first to have been successfully hatched and fledged by captive-raised parents. This marks a huge step in establishing a non-migratory, second flock of rare whooping cranes, North America's most celebrated endangered species-and tallest bird.
"There are fewer than 400 whooping cranes left in the world, and this bird's history-making flight is a significant milestone in our efforts to restore the whooping crane to its former range in the Southeastern United States," said Steve Nesbitt, non-migratory whooping crane project leader for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC). Nesbitt was also one of the principal investigators of Earthwatch Institute's Whooping Crane project, which helped support the return of the Florida population.
Lucky's parents were a brother and sister who were released in 1999 from U.S.G.S. Patuxent Wildlife Research Center to the wild. Earthwatch volunteers helped monitor the birds' release with Mike Kreger, Dr. George Gee, and Dr. Jeff Hatfield, all of the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center. The project investigated what characteristics of the recent, year-old releasees made some birds better prospects for survival than others.
In drought-ridden central Florida, bobcats and even alligators took a fair number of the naïve birds, which need to learn to roost at night deep in marshes where they are safer from predators. Earthwatch teams tracked such factors as a bird's vigilance, proximity to other birds, and aggressiveness. Their findings were borne out by the success of Lucky's parents. Both the isolation-reared parents spent much of their post-release time foraging during the day, when volunteers could observe them. They were also sufficiently vigilant to avoid the jaws of either alligators or bobcats, which typically hunt at dawn or dusk.
Efficient foraging during the daytime, Kreger said, means Lucky's parents roosted in the comparative safety of the crane flock at night. A hungry bird that fed at night, said Kreger, "not only could have attracted the attention of a predator, but foraging could have led the bird away from the safety of the roosting flock, thus making it an easy target."
The fact that Lucky has fledged, meaning it can fly on its own, means it now has essentially the same chance for survival as its parents. For the bird's first 76 days before it became airborne, however, it was touch and go. Gene and Tina Tindell, long-term residents at the edge of the Leesburg marsh where Lucky's parents took up residence last December, watched the chick's battle for survival. They witnessed "more of the day to day life of a whooping crane family than anyone else ever has," said Marty Folk, FWC biological field coordinator for the non-migratory whooping crane project. A bald eagle had snatched these whooping cranes' second chick only hours after it had hatched, "The Tindells watched the parents fend off attacks from bald eagles that would attempt to take Lucky on a daily basis (hence the name) and saw the male whooping crane actually attack and seriously injure one of the adult eagles," said Folk. The parents also had to protect their surviving chick from dogs and cats.
One factor that may have played into Lucky's survival is that the drought appears to be abating, and the wettest months are yet to come, offering the birds better protection against predators. The more benign conditions may have spurred reproductive efforts. "In all this season, we recorded seven nesting attempts from six different females," an all-time high for the reintroduction project, said Nesbitt. "One female nested twice: a renest was another important milestone that was reached in 2002."
Although Lucky's parents are siblings, "all whooping cranes are inbred to some extent," said Hatfield, because their numbers dipped below 20 in 1940, so the gene pool is small. "The fact that the pair has produced one (apparently) healthy offspring is a very good sign indeed," he said. Fittingly, Lucky's granddad was Canus, the oldest whooping crane in the captive flock that started the entire government endangered species effort to save the cranes in 1964.
The Non-Migratory Whooping Crane Reintroduction Project began in Florida nearly 22 years ago, with 13 years of preliminary study of sandhill cranes before the first captive-reared whooping crane was released in Florida in 1993. Since then four chicks have hatched in the wild: the two in Leesburg this year, and two in Osceola County in 2000. The only survivor is Lucky. The Non-Migratory Whooping Crane Reintroduction Project is a cooperative effort among the FWC, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the U.S. Geological Survey, the Canadian Wildlife Service, the International Crane Foundation, the Calgary Zoo, the San Antonio Zoo, and, in 1999 and 2000, Earthwatch Institute.
Earthwatch Institute is an international nonprofit organization which supports scientific field research worldwide by offering members of the public unique opportunities to work alongside leading field scientists and researchers. The Institute's mission is to engage people worldwide in scientific field research and education to promote the understanding and action necessary for a sustainable environment.