Photo Journals! Wintering Whoopers Ultralight-guided Migration   Whooper Happenings Mark Chenoweth's latest audio podcast all about Whooping Cranes! Operation Migration is pleased to provide this link to Whooper Happenings to its website visitors.   Mark Chenoweth, an OM supporter with a long history in broadcast journalism,  developed Whooper Happenings. In addition to OM staffers and WCEP partners, Mark's podcasts include interviews with various experts and lay people on Whooping crane history, husbandry and reintroduction. The comments and opinions expressed on Whooper Happenings are not necessarily those of Operation Migration.

Date: May 31st 2006 Links Reporter: Liz Condie Spring 2006 Photo Journal. Location: Main Office Activity: Egg/Chick Allocation Notes: Tom Stehn, (Co-chair of the Whooping Crane Recovery Team, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Whooping Crane Coordinator, Aransas NWR) leads a weekly conference call of the flock managers of all six of the Whooping crane breeding centers around North America . These calls take place during the breeding season so the centers can share information, discuss potential pairings, and allocate eggs for the various reintroduction programs. With the breeding season drawing to a close, the final call was held yesterday. The report below is a synopsis of the telephone meeting. As egg production is essentially finished for the season, the totals below should be close to final numbers. This year's eggs have come from The Audubon Species Survival Center in Louisiana (SSC), the Calgary Zoo in Canada , USGS Patuxent WRC in Maryland, and ICF in Wisconsin, all of which had good production seasons. Calgary literally shot above what their flock had ever produced before. Given that Patuxent could have faced a disastrous season with the February snow storm that damaged nearly all pens, its results are so much better than expected. Tom Stehn commented, "There are some very talented and dedicated people at all the captive facilities that make this happen, for which we should all be grateful." To date, 19 chicks have been hatched for the WCEP project and are destined for ultralight training. One chick (616) has some health problems. Three more eggs are still incubating. In addition, there is one chick, (609) and one egg, that will be genetic holdbacks. At ICF there are 4 chicks hatched for the DAR program. ICF also has 3 fertile eggs, and 4 unknown eggs (3 of which are likely to be fertile). 1 chick, 7 fertile eggs and 1 unknown egg will either be assigned to DAR or held back for genetic purposes. 1 chick and 1 fertile egg are definite genetic holdbacks. The numbers above include 2 eggs that are scheduled to be shipped June 6th from Calgary to ICF, and 3 eggs that were shipped from Patuxent to ICF on May 29th. "It looks like production will fully meet and/or exceed the WCEP egg quotas requested back in February at the Whooping Crane Recovery Meetings," said Tom. "It is inevitable," he added, "that a few chicks will develop health problems, but I think the numbers [given above] anticipate some of those situations." Date: May 31st 2006 Links Reporter: Liz Condie Spring 2006 Photo Journal. Location: Main Office Activity: Tracking Team Report Tracking Team Update for May 21-26 Distribution at the end of the week:  [* = female] 55 - Wisconsin 6 - Iowa (*501, *508, *509, 512, 514, *519) 3 - Michigan (318, 522, DAR533) Nesting News: 211 and 217 re-nested at their 2005 nest site near the East Rynearson Pool dike and began incubating on May 23rd. Health Concerns: 216’s leg injury appeared significantly improved and his limp was much reduced. As always, thanks to the Tracking Team, and to Kelly Maguire and Sara Zimorski for additional assistance. Thanks to Terry Kohler, Mike Mauer, and Tom Trester (Windway Capital Corporation) for aircraft support. Special thanks and goodbye….. Lara Fondow, former intern and research associate at ICF, leaves this week to pursue a Master’s degree at the University of Wisconsin. For the past four years, Lara has served as Monitoring Crew Chief and primary tracker of the reintroduced eastern migratory whooping crane population. She performed the duties of her demanding position skillfully and professionally. Her dedication and 24/7 commitment to the project’s success cannot be overemphasized. Lara's affiliation with the WCEP project will continue however, through an appointment by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. We wish Lara all the very best. She will be missed! Date: May 30th, 2006 Links Reporter: Liz Condie Spring 2006 Photo Journal. Location: Main Office Activity: Two more chicks! Notes:  We expect a 'real' report from Mark soon, but in the meantime we are tickled to be able to tell you that 19 and 20 have hatched! Below is an updated 'Chick Chart'. (* is genetic holdback.) WCEP Bird # Hatch Date Sex Egg Source 601 5-May M ICF 602 6-May F Necedah 603 7-May F Necedah 604 8-May F Calgary 605 9-May F PWRC 606 11-May M PWRC 607 13-May M ICF 608 13-May F PWRC *NA 14-May UK PWRC 610 14-May M PWRC 611 18-May F Audubon 612 18-May M ICF 613 19-May UK ICF 614 20-May UK Calgary 615 21-May UK PWRC 616 23-May UK PWRC 617 25-May UK PWRC 618 27-May UK Calgary 619 28-May UK Calgary 620 28-May UK Calgary Date: May 27th, 2006 Links Reporter: Mark Nipper Spring 2006 Photo Journal. Location: Patuxent Activity: More hatches Notes:  As of today there are 18 chicks hatched; #17 from a PWRC egg and #18 from an egg received from Canada's Calgary Zoo. #16 is still of special concern with some serious health problems. The rest are healthy and doing well. Training and socialization are progressing. We have begun taking chicks out to the White Series pens (see explanation below). We recently received the sexes for numbers 1 through 12, except for #9 whose results were incomplete (see chick list in previous journal entry). So far we have a good balance of females. #1 and 3 are getting along well together. They are training for 15 to 20 minutes and doing fairly well with the trike. #3 is still rather distracted, but so far it is not hindering #1. #4 and 5 were a good group, but #4 is becoming more aggressive. So long as they both keep moving, they are alright. Hopefully it will stay that way if not get better. The rest of the chicks are still training and walking separately. #2 is remains highly aggressive and is a pain in the butt to train (see photo in tub). She follows for a couple minutes then turns crazy. She will see something that scares her to death and start running and screaming, then she suddenly spots something that looks interesting and just wanders off like nothing ever happened. #8 is turning out to be very similar (see pics). She too is highly aggressive; tries to kill #7 through the fence all day long. This bird is usually distracted and hard to train or walk. Thankfully, the rest of the little guys are all walking and training pretty well. The big breakthrough yesterday was getting birds out to the White Series pens for the first time. There are multiple sets of pens at PWRC, most named after colors. The White Series (WS) is where the WCEP chicks go live when they get older. Yesterday we walked three birds out there and let them hang out next to each other. #1 and 3 went to one pen, while #2 came out and hung out next door. Then #4 and 5 went out with #6 next door. We take them out to the pens at the same time so they can get used to seeing each other through the fence as well as all the commotion that will be involved. All it all it went very well. We will continue to walk them out there briefly until they have acclimated enough for us to try leaving them out over night. Date: May 26th, 2006 Links Reporter: Liz Condie Spring 2006 Photo Journal. Location: Main Office Activity: Chick Chart We have a total of 16 chicks now. Mark advises that the most recently hatched chick, 616, is small and underweight, and that the crew is concerned.  For those of you keeping track, here is Mark's updated chart. WCEP Bird # Hatch Date Sex Egg Source 601 5-May M ICF 602 6-May F Necedah 603 7-May F Necedah 604 8-May F Calgary 605 9-May F PWRC 606 11-May M PWRC 607 13-May M ICF 608 13-May F PWRC *NA 14-May UK PWRC 610 14-May M PWRC 611 18-May F Audubon 612 18-May M ICF 613 19-May UK ICF 614 20-May UK Calgary 615 21-May UK PWRC 616 23-May UK PWRC Date: May 25th, 2006 Links Reporter: Liz Condie Spring 2006 Photo Journal. Location: Main Office Activity: Crossing the species line At the end of his update yesterday, (see below) Joe talked about cross-species synergy. Hmmm, I wonder what one would call this species? Mickey McCrane? Think the job must be getting to this poor soul? She's seems to be engaged in a serious conversation with a recycle bin and a duck. Date: May 24th, 2006 Links Reporter: Joe Duff Spring 2006 Photo Journal. Location: Main Office Activity: Disney and IMBD Notes:  Apart from the founding organizations of the Whooping Crane Eastern Partnership there are several agencies and people who have been involved with this project from the beginning. Time flies when you are having fun, or too busy to notice, but it's hard to believe that we have known the people at The Disney Wildlife Conservation Fund for over 5 years. In that time they have donated over $100,000 to OM , and become one of our biggest single contributors. In addition to financial support, they have offered advice and guided us over a steep fundraising learning curve. When the Project Direction Team decided we needed to short-stop birds at the Halpata Tastanaki site near Dunellen Florida , a new pen was needed. Many of the Disney staff volunteered their time to wade knee deep in oozing mud to help with its construction. Now we have a place to hold the birds temporarily