Off to a Good Start
The first year's fall migration and spring return proved the value of the ultralight-led migration technique.

The fall migration and spring return of the Class of 2001 proved the value of the ultralight-led migration technique. At the start, Operation Migration and others in the Whooping Crane Eastern Partnership (WCEP) thought they would lead a new generation of captive-bred whoopers south each fall until perhaps 2005. No one ever guessed that aircraft-led migrations would continue until the final one in 2015!  In 15 years of aircraft-led migrations, pilots of Operation Migration led 192 young cranes south. Our ”Look Back” series revisits migration triumphs, curiosities, routines and setbacks. Let's see how the "ultra-chicks" got off to a good start.

Spring: Training New Chicks
Each year's fall migration began the previous April and May at the captive breeding center in Maryland where the chicks hatched. The babies had to learn everything from humans instead of natural crane parents. Staying with the baby chicks day and night, the humans wore baggy white costumes and helmets to hide their human selves so the babies would never get used to humans. The baby cranes must develop a healthy fear of all things human for the best chance of survival. The costumed handlers used puppets made like cranes to dispense treats for the chicks' good behaviors. To identify with their own species, the chicks saw real (and also some plastic) adult Whooping Cranes around them. While still in their eggs before hatching, they heard recordings of the sounds they would need to trust: the comforting contact call of an adult crane, and the ultralight plane engine. This made them less fearful of the noise when they were introduced to the tiny plane at a week of age. They learned to trust the plane and the costumes as the "parents" they would follow 1200 miles on fall migration. All these lessons were gained at "ground school" in Maryland, where they were born. Like you, each chick had a report card to track training progress.

Summer: From Ground School to Flight School
At about 90 days of age, the young were almost ready to fly. Now it was important to transport them inside an airplane to the new eastern flock's summer nesting grounds in Wisconsin. Their first flights imprinted on a crane's brain tell them this place was home. They went to "flight school" in Wisconsin. They walked, then ran, hopped, skipped and leaped after their little yellow airplane leader as it taxied down the grass training strip. Finally, the young birds took to the air! They flew with the tiny plane on longer and higher flights, eventually circling miles through the whole area to learn the landscape to which they'd return in spring. By October they were always ready for the real deal: the journey south!

Fall: The Aircraft-Guided Journey South
Each departure made headlines for this amazing conservation feat. This was true even when the nation was gripped with shock after terrorists crashed hijacked planes into New York’s World Trade Center just days before the first aircraft-led departure in 2001. The trusting young cranes offered some hope and joy at a dark time. Year after year, hundreds of "craniacs" turned out all along the route to glimpse the cranes and planes pass overhead on their journeys south. Today people can look skyward as the miracle of migration is restored to eastern North America, thanks to the brave young cranes who got Whooping Crane recovery off to a good start!

By Jane Duden
October, 2016