Tuesday, February 6, 2007
Class to honor cranes killed in storm
Students tracked migration to Fla.
By James Bruggers
Fourth-graders at a Louisville school yesterday wrote
sympathy cards and potted white narcissus bulbs in memory of 17 endangered
cranes that died last week in a powerful Florida storm.
The Kennedy Montessori Elementary students had followed the whooping
cranes' migration last fall from Wisconsin to Florida, through Indiana
and Kentucky, on the Internet. They also raised funds to help cover
the costs of the migration, which was led by pilots in ultra-light
aircraft.
"I think it's so sad because they went that whole migration, and
now it's over and they are all dead except for one," said Michaela
Nee, as she and fellow students Malasia Johnson, Ben Phillips and Omar
Gomez placed three bulbs in a painted clay pot.
Each bulb represents one bird, and when the weather warms, the class
will transplant them to a memorial garden near a pond on the school's
grounds, teacher Lori Trout said.
She said the class yesterday discussed the birds' plight. They decided
to draw and write sympathy cards, make paper and wax cranes, and raise
money to help other cranes be safer, Trout said.
Many of the cards featured drawings of cranes with halos.
Trout said the events would help the children say goodbye to the cranes
and focus their energies on the future.
Eighteen cranes were being kept in a large, fenced area within Florida's
Chassahowitzka National Wildlife Refuge north of Tampa Bay when the storm
rolled through late last week, said Joe Duff, co-founder of Operation
Migration, and one of the ultra-light aircraft pilots who in recent years
have led juvenile cranes on their first migration south.
Operation Migration partners originally thought all 18 died but later
picked up a radio signal from the lone survivor.
Duff said he's not sure how the bird survived or how the others died.
But he said the deaths may have been caused by lightning or by being
caught in a portion of the enclosure that was topped by netting during
rising storm waters.
Authorities are conducting tests to find out, Duff said.
"The kids have just been mind-boggling," Duff said of the Louisville
students, whose hand-drawn letters last fall helped persuade the ExxonMobil
Foundation to contribute $2,500 toward the migration. "I'm just
so impressed."
If there's any good to come of the tragedy, it is that the birds' deaths
are generating national publicity, and that may focus more attention
and money on efforts to bring them back from near extinction, Duff said.
Only about 300 wild whooping cranes remain. Most migrate between Canada
and Texas. But in recent years, conservationists have been working to
restore an eastern population that winters in Florida.
The young cranes are raised from eggs taken from adults at wildlife centers
and do not have their parents to show them the way. After following the
pilots, who are dressed as birds, they know how to migrate on their own.
Trout said the students and their parents were saddened by the incident.
"This all started with, 'How can we put the world back together?'"
she recalled.
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