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| Singing wren by Burg Ransom |
At my house in all seasons and weathers, the male Carolina
wren sings. His faithful singing
inspires me. I recently met some folks,
who never stop singing their song they call the “gospel of crane.” This is a song about bringing the rare,
elegant whooping cranes back to the Louisiana landscape after they had been
gone for 60 years. The last one of
Louisiana’s wild whooping cranes departed in a helicopter headed to Texas for
relocation at Aransas National Wildlife Refuge in March of 1950. This story holds another song by deceased
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist John J. Lynch and his daughter, Mary
Lynch Courville, who continues to sing her father’s song. (I
will write more about this remarkable lady and her history with whooping cranes
in another blog).
In December of 2013 ten juvenile whooping cranes, draped in
their intermingled rust-colored and white feathers, arrived at their new
home in the Louisiana wetlands at the White
Lake Wetlands Conservation Area (WLWCA) located in Vermillion Parish. These cranes joined the ranks of the 33
surviving cranes from previous introductions by the Louisiana Department of
Wildlife and Fisheries (LDWF). The first
group of 10 young whooping cranes arrived in Louisiana on February 11, 2011.
In January I had the privilege of riding through the canals
of the marsh to the impoundment at WLWCA, where the cranes are released, to see
the results of years of work by many passionate conservationists. Under a clear, blue winter sky with the wind
whispering in the tall, feathery marsh grasses the omnivorous, young whooping
cranes strolled through the marsh searching for Louisiana delicacies like
crawfish, frogs, and snakes. A lone,
adult male from a previous release chaperoned the youngsters. According to Sara Zimorski, the whooping
crane biologist with LDWF, she will supplement their diet to keep them close to
the impoundment, where they can forage in a fenced enclosure, for another two weeks and then they will be on their own. Sara monitors and tracks the cranes with two
kinds of radio transmitters attached to their legs. They seem to be adapting well to the
Louisiana rice/crawfish fields, she said.
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| Young whooping cranes in fenced enclosure by Amy Ouchley January 31, 2014 the tall one is a decoy |
The behavioral biology of whooping cranes is complex and
fascinating. Konrad Lorenz (1903-1989),
Austrian pioneer in the field of animal behavior and world-famous for his
studies on imprinting in ducks and geese, gives this definition of “imprinting.” “Imprinting is a developmental process by
which behavior becomes attached to a particular object.” Biologists learned from other crane projects
that whooping cranes could sexually imprint or become attached to humans or sandhill
cranes at an early age if they were exposed to them during hatching and rearing. This situation can seriously impair mating and the
reproduction of viable whooping crane offspring.
Zimorski says this.
“Whooping cranes are slow to reproduce.
Reproduction is where you hit the brick wall. If you can’t get over it, then the project
may not be successful.” Reproductive age
in whooping cranes is about 3 years old, and some of the Louisiana whooping
cranes are now reaching that age.
Hopefully they will start reproducing more whooping cranes in the wild
in the next few years. The future of the Louisiana project depends on successful whooping crane reproduction in the wild.
It is important that all humans, who interact with whooping
cranes, are dressed like a whooping crane and do not talk. I will blog about “costume/isolation rearing”
in the future. Before we visited the
crane area we learned that it was crucial that the young cranes did not see or
hear us. Two small fiberglass blinds on
the levee provide a hidden viewing place about 75 yards from the cranes.
I can testify that a reverent silence prevailed among the
group of Greater New Orleans Louisiana Master Naturalists, LDWF personnel, and
educators, who visited the cranes this day.
As I stood in enthralled wonder inside a blind for a few minutes, the
adult crane spread his huge, white wings and displayed the black tips and one
of the young birds lifted up in a slow arc up into the blue sky. As the lone crane flew with neck and legs
outstretched over his cohorts, the whooping cranes sang out in high, ringing chortles to each other. Time seemed to pause for me as I witnessed this miraculous event of a young whooping crane once again flying over the Louisiana marsh.
This morning hearing the wren’s song reminded me of the special
moment that I heard whooping crane music in the Louisiana marsh. Like the wren we must all be faithful to the
singing of the songs that matter to us.
I want my grandchildren to hear the all of the songs of the natural
world especially that of whooping cranes in Louisiana. My newest tune is “gospel of
crane.”
There is a lot more to learn about this fascinating project
to reintroduce whooping cranes to the wilds of Louisiana. For more information visit the LDWF’s website: http://www.wlf.louisiana.gov/wildlife/whooping-cranes
