Whoops!

You say you have a horror story about an airplane ride?  Oh, really?  I bet you were never grounded and then caged up for a month in Fulton County, Alabama, now were you?  I think I have you beat, then.

Let me explain, I’m a whooping crane, known to your scientists as a Grus americana.  You probably haven’t ever seen me or heard my early-morning bugle call, since there are so few of my kind left, only about 400 now in 2012.  Think that’s a low number?  In the 1940’s there were only fifteen (correct, 15) of us left at one point; every living whooper today is descended from those 15.  Sort of our George and Martha Washington, Thomas and Martha Jefferson, (I guess Martha was pretty high on the popular name list in the 1700’s) and perhaps Sally Hemmings was in there also.

You think you have it tough?  Try being 5 feet tall and mostly white, living in the wild.  Who are our predators?  Might be easier to list who isn’t!  Bear, wolf, fox, lynx, eagle, raven and bobcat are often after me or my young.  Teenage boys with raging hormones and access to guns are no friends, either.  Luckily for them, no matter what mayhem they cause, they generally get off with a slap-on-the-wrist fine and probation, even though it is illegal to harm us cranes.  Not so lucky for me.

But hey, I’m an optimist and there is a lot to be optimistic about, once you know my whole story.  Our main flock, now numbering about 300, migrates from Alberta, Canada to the gulf coast of Texas and back each year. You could call us the original snowbirds.  I can easily spiral up on the wind, my black wing tips sticking up and long, black legs trailing behind, and then glide downward.  A whooping crane in flight is poetry in motion, as they say, and we birds know this route by heart.

Smart biologists and ornithologists from both the U.S. and Canada got together to protect cranes and had an aha!moment: why not try to establish new populations on different migratory paths?  Brilliant!  They hatched and reared cranes in isolation in central Wisconsin.  But how to get them to migrate to a new location?  More brilliance: ultralight aircraft were used by the group, called Operation Migration, to lead us on the path to the Florida gulf coast.  This flock, begun in 2001, is now up to about 100 birds.  Once we learn the route, we are good to go.  Pretty smart, huh? 

Anyway, I was proud to be part of this year’s class of nine newborns, hand-picked to follow along and learn the ropes on the 1,300 mile trip.  I do have to say, though it is nice of you, and even inspired, to dress the pilot and plane up to look like us cranes, it is not really necessary.  We are not quite that stupid, we know it is just you crazy (albeit lovable) humans!

We feasted on corn, soybeans and cheese and then started out from Wisconsin in October.  My only disappointment was being told we could not detour to that South of the Border place that’s all over the billboards, it was too far out of the way.  It was smooth sailing, though, for a couple of months.

Suddenly, though, everything came to a grinding halt in Alabama in December.  Seems the Federal Aviation Administration had ruled that our whole migration was illegal!  There’s a law that says ultralight aircraft cannot legally be used for commercial purposes, and guiding whooping cranes apparently qualifies as a commercial enterprise.   Say what?  Can you say, “Bureaucracy in action”?  All nine of us were immediately inspired to change our affiliation to vote Republican and reduce such crazy regulations.

So it was Christmas in Alabama for us, three squares of fish, snails and berries and an occasional hour out of prison to stretch our legs.  The horrors!

This issue was actually debated for about a month.  That’s right, paid members of the FAA put their heads together to consider what could be done.  And you wonder why it is so hard for the government to accomplish anything?  Finally they found a way out of this embarrassment: grant us a special, one-time exemption to complete the trip, but only because we were already en route.  What happens next year is anyone’s guess; the FAA says a more comprehensive, long-term solution is needed, a decade after these flights were started.  What could that solution be, maybe a group rate on first-class flights?  Nah, that would be no fun, and who wants to go through those screeners, anyway?

Well, all’s well that ends well for now and, truly, I have to be thankful just to be alive.  So thank you and your kind for your support.  It is estimated that there were about 1,400 whooping cranes alive in 1860.  Perhaps by 2160 we can get back to that number.  If I had bet on that happening in the ‘40s, probably all 400 of us cranes could retire to crane condos in Boca Raton. 

This story is dedicated to the memory of John T. Ferris.

Editors note: This year’s migration from Wisconsin to Florida could not be completed once the birds refused to follow the ultralight aircraft any longer after their month's respite.  Can you blame them?  The birds are now being transported by truck to the Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge in Alabama.  For up to date information, check the link below.

For up-to-date info on the status of this year's migration, click here.


To see a video of whooping cranes in the wild, click here.


For more info on cranes and the efforts to help them, click here.