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Case
of the Traveling Eggs
Contributed by Tom Stehn
Photo
Mark Nipper, WCEP
Dwight Knapik is the flock manager at Canada's Calgary Zoo. On March 23 he boarded a commercial jet in Calgary and flew to the Patuxent (say "Pa TUX ent") Wildlife Research Center in Laurel, Maryland. He carried only a change of clothes with him, for he had a very precious cargo to watch over. In a special incubator case designed to fit under his airplane seat, he carried 2 Whooping Crane eggs. The egg case had a special battery pack to automatically keep the eggs at the right temperature. The manager only had to put a wet sponge in the case. Why? To provide the proper humidity for the eggs so they wouldn't get too dry.
Ten hours later, the two eggs arrived at Patuxent and were quickly placed in an incubator. As it turned out, only one of the two eggs that had been transported was alive. The other egg just hadn't developed properly; it could not produce a chick. That outcome had nothing to do with the egg being carried across the country. Some eggs just don't make it.
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