Articles | Outdoors: Kayak Cedar Keys Hosts Youth Groups July 1st, 2013
Outdoors: FWC restricts boating on Suwannee River`s Zone 4 March 11th, 2013
Outdoors: Scrub Jay Watch July 1st, 2012
Outdoors: Whooping Crane Chicks in Training August 5th, 2011
Outdoors: Fishing Report August 4th, 2011
Outdoors: Busy Bees June 28th, 2011
Outdoors: Bay Scallop Season Opens Early June 24th, 2011
Outdoors: All About Mosquitoes June 21st, 2011
Outdoors: Small Boat Meet This Weekend May 6th, 2011
Outdoors: FREE Guided Birding Walk for the Visually Impaired May 6th, 2011
Outdoors: Ranger-led Paddle to Atsena Otie April 6th, 2011
Outdoors: TICKS! February 25th, 2011
Outdoors: Annual Stargazing Party Coming to Cedar Key January 8th, 2011
Outdoors: Refuge Bird Walk on Monday, January 10 January 7th, 2011
Outdoors: Good Neighbors Clean Historic Suwannee December 13th, 2010
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Whooping Crane Chicks in Training | Whooping Crane Chicks in TrainingJim Hoy Operation Migration is carefully raising its 2011 crop of Whooping Crane chicks at its Wisconsin training site. The "class of 2011" is small, just ten birds. Eggs from captive parents were hatched in Maryland, a cooperative effort that includes U.S. and Canadian wildlife biologists and a small army of volunteer crane enthusiasts. What is now a seventeen year project, Operation Migration, a non-profit organization, uses costumes and puppets to raise the chicks with a minimum of human contact. As the chicks near fledging they are trained to follow an ultra-light plane up and down a runway. Eventually the flock takes training flights. Well trained, in early fall the flock takes local flights and then the supervised trip to safe overwintering sites in Florida. Whooping Cranes are an endangered species that has come back from the edge of extinction. The entire population was fifteen birds in the 1940`s. Operation Migration`s goal is to establish a population that summers and breeds in Wisconsin and winters in Florida. That population will serve as insurance against a catastrophe striking the population that summers and breeds in Canada and winters on the Texas Gulf Coast. Cedar Key News reports the training and migration of the eastern flock each year. Endangered species can be saved from extinction. Sometimes a simple solution such as restricting the use of DDT saves endangered species such as Bald Eagles, Osprey and Brown Pelicans. Deer, cougars and alligators have recovered following legislative action. Whooping Cranes and the California Condor are two species that have needed heroic help to counter habitat loss and human predation. Captive breeding flocks and training programs that recognize the need to preserve the natural fear of humans are in place. These programs, staffed by government biologists and dedicated volunteers go forward, aided by contributions from bird lovers from all over the North American continent. For more information please go to Operation Migration`s website. www.operationmigration.org |
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