Eastern Flock Nesting Failures: What Do Experts Think?
Joe
Duff, Operation Migration
[The
cranes] seem
to be appropriately defending a territory and properly building their
nest in good habitat. The eggs they lay appear
to be healthy with the proper shell thickness and they share their nest
duties. Most seem dedicated to the job of incubation at least until the
Black flies hit.
It may be that the last Whooping cranes to nest in Wisconsin over 100 years
ago didn’t have to contend with this problem. Climate change may
have adjusted the Black fly season to coincide with their nesting or maybe
it’s always been a problem. At any rate the next step is to analyze
the data to see if Black flies really are the culprit. Thereafter we must
determine if the problem is controllable and decide if we should continue
to manage this population on into the future. Operation Migration Field
Journal: May 28, 2009
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