Whooping Crane Meet Brian Johns! Brian Johns is a biologist with the Canadian Wildlife Service. He is seen here measuring water depths during a whooping crane nest check in Wood Buffalo National Park.  Brian is the Canadian leader of the International Whooping Crane Recovery Team. He has been helping whooping cranes since 1981. Brian is based in Saskatoon, SK. He travels 1,000 KM to Fort Smith to fly for his breeding grounds surveys after the cranes start nesting. (For the cranes, 1,000 KM is about a 3-day flight.) Brian records whooping crane unison calls in an effort to identify individual pairs through their unique voiceprints.   A crane's eye view of Brian's plane as he conducts a whooping crane survey.  An aerial view of the Wood Buffalo crane nesting marshes. Because the nesting area is composed of large marshes, a float plane is used to fly over and survey the cranes and their nests during the summer.   Facebook Pinterest Twitter © 1997 – 2019 Journey North. All rights reserved.