Congratulations to my good friends (They helped me celebrate my birthday two years ago and you know how traumatic that can be. It was a kindness I won't forget.) at Operation Migration. Last week they received a Partners in Conservation Award at the Department of Interior from Secretary of the Interior, Ken Salazar in Washington D.C. It was an honor that was well deserved.
Operation Migration (OM) has spent the best part of the last decade working to reintroduce an "eastern" flock of migrating whooping cranes, America’s tallest and, arguably, most elegant and endangered bird.
Historically, there had once been an eastern population but those cranes were all killed around 1900. Each year, OM trains a small group of young cranes to follow ultralight aircraft south for the winter. Once the cranes know the way, they’ll continue to migrate the rest of their lives. In time, the leggy students will mature, find a mate and teach their own young how to migrate. Whooping cranes mate for life and can live 30 to 50 years.
This is a remarkable story: the first time in human history that our species has taught another species a lost behavior. Not as easy as it sounds. In truth, it's remarkably difficult.
For more information on how you can help, most notably, make a donation, go to:
http://operationmigration.org
- Photo taken at the International Crane Foundation in Baraboo, Wisconsin
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