Louisiana’s small flock of young whooping cranes has already equaled last year’s nest total with four, and there’s a good chance that number will double. But if the eggs hatch, will the young adults be good parents?
The Associated Press reports the question arises because the birds taught to migrate by following ultralight planes from Wisconsin to Florida have had little success raising chicks. Out of hundreds of eggs, 64 have hatched, but only nine chicks lived long enough to fly.
Like those in the flock taught to migrate by following the ultralight planes, Louisiana’s birds grew up in a crowd that learned to eat and drink by mimicking the pecking of model crane heads held by people in baggy white garments with hoods and black masks. Their caretakers flapped their arms and the birds copied them, ultimately managing liftoff.
That let biologists raise more youngsters than cranes could on their own, and kept the chicks from imprinting on humans as their parents.
But this year, the public-private group overseeing all captive-bred whooping cranes decided to see whether upbringing is the problem with the migratory flock. Perhaps they really need parent cranes to learn how to be crane parents.
So instead of being hatched in incubators and raised by costumed people, eggs for that flock will be hatched and raised by cranes, then, at about 3 months old, released near a wild pair that is still flush with parenting hormones because they recently either lost their own chick or laid eggs that didn’t hatch.
Pete Fasbender, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service member of the supervisory Whooping Crane Eastern Partnership, says he’s worried Louisiana’s cranes may have the same problem as the human-created migratory flock.
The next year or two will show one way or the other, says  Sara Zimorski, a biologist with the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, adding she’s not worried now.
“I think our birds have shown a lot of promise,” she says.
