Whooping cranes migrate through Indiana
Cindy DiFazio - Staff Writer

Operation Migration arrived at Muscatatuck National Wildlife Preserve on Friday, November 11 for just an overnight stay. That was not to happen. On Tuesday, November 15 inclement weather had grounded their flight for the fourth day in a row. Joe Duff, photographer and pilot, related that they had made nine flights so far this year, and it will take up to 24 to complete the migration.

Duff said that good flight conditions would include calm air with tailwinds. The weather here in "Windiana" was far from ideal. It was rainy and windy for days on end. The crew spent their time doing maintenance and "trying to have fun."

Each year since 2001, as part of a landmark reintroduction effort, Operation Migration's pilots have led a "cohort" of captive-hatched Whooping cranes imprinted to follow OM's ultralight aircraft along a primeval migration route between central Wisconsin and the Gulf coast of Florida.

This one-of-a-kind project was built on the innovations of Operation Migration's Bill Lishman. Lishman's work with Canada Geese in the early 1990's was the inspiration for the major motion picture, Fly Away Home.

In 1999, Operation Migration was asked by the Canadian/US Whooping Crane Recovery Team to spearhead an experiment to reintroduce Whooping cranes into central Wisconsin, and teach them to migrate by leading them to the west coast of Florida.

Using captive-hatched birds, OM raises and trains chicks to accept and follow specially modified ultralight aircraft. Chicks, still inside their eggs, are exposed to ultralight aircraft sounds. To keep the cranes wild, project biologists and pilots adhere to a strict no-talking rule and wear baggy white costumes to disguise the human form. They wear a crane puppet on one arm that can dispense food or, by example, show the young chicks how to forage, as would their real mother.

Hailed as, "The wildlife equivalent of putting a man on the moon," the program is literally safeguarding the survival of the Whooping crane.

The 1,250-mile journey to their coastal Florida winter habitat at Chassahowitzka National Wildlife Refuge includes more than 20 stopovers. As the ability to fly each day is weather-dependent, the migration can take up to nine weeks.

This year the group left Wisconsin on October 14, and had logged 434.1 miles when it reached Jennings County. The entourage includes four ultralight aircraft, twelve crew members consisting of pilots, biologists, vets, and interns, several RVs, and most importantly, 19 rare Whooping cranes. They can cover between 50-100 miles per day, with 200 miles in one day being the longest flight recorded.

The next leg of the trip, after leaving Muscatatuck, was 48 miles to Shelby County, Kentucky. Finally, on Thursday morning, November 17 conditions were good enough to take to the air. According to OM's flight journal on the Internet, the group landed safely in Kentucky shortly after 9:00 a.m. after a one-hour twelve-minute flight.

The public can follow the progress of Operation Migration on the web at www.operationmigration.org.

CINDY DIFIZAO PHOTO

An Operation Migration crew member donned the costume worn when communicating with rare Whooping cranes. The goal is to keep them independent of human contact while reintroducing them to the wild. He stands in front of one of the ultralight aircraft used to teach the cranes migration patterns and lead them to their winter home.