Wood Buffalo NP Updates

Wood Buffalo National Park Whooping Crane Conservation Update

by

September 2021 Whooping Crane Conservation UPDATE

Whooping Crane Conservation
Wood Buffalo National Park

This summer has been another exciting and engaging one for Wood Buffalo National Park and all partners involved in whooping crane research and monitoring. Even with COVID-19 realities and mitigations across boundaries, conservation collaboration continues unimpeded. Innovation and adaptation have been the story of successful efforts to date.

What the Crane Spring Monitoring looked like

Each year, Canadian Wildlife Service (CWS) and Parks Canada staff conduct aerial surveys over the extensive wetlands that the cranes nest in and call home for the summer. These surveys occur at the end of May for the purpose of locating nests and then again in late July to count the number of chicks fledged. COVID 19 prevented surveys from taking place at all in 2020 and in 2021 CWS was still unable to join Parks staff on the survey, but Park staff conducted surveys in both May and August and the results are positive.

Enter Citizen Science

As Whooping Crane nesting areas expand to regions outside of Wood Buffalo National Park and begin to cover a wider area, new techniques in monitoring are needed. This past summer, CWS, the Calgary Zoo and Parks Canada launched a new crowdsourcing project to test the viability of using satellite photos to find Whooping Crane nesting sites. This was trialed in 2020 and launched on a wider scale pilot in 2021. Working through Zooniverse (the world’s largest citizen science platform!) we launched a virtual volunteering project with people from around the world helping detect several new nesting locations that were not previously known to biologists.

By the numbers:

• 2095 citizen scientists
• 59,038 images
• 102 nests identified, including 4 new nests

50 Crane Chicks Seen During Survey Flights

Whooping Crane Conservation
Whooping crane nesting area at Wood Buffalo National Park. Photo by Jane Peterson / ©Parks Canada /Wood Buffalo National Park. Click on photo to enlarge.

Parks Canada was back in the air again this August, searching for chicks and cranes amongst the extensive wetlands of the park. During this time, staff return to observe the nesting sites again and to count the number of chicks that can be seen. During helicopter surveys, at least 50 chicks were seen from the air. But the process of counting chicks amongst the thick wetlands of Wood Buffalo is far from perfect, and actual survival rate may be higher. At this time of year, the chicks are nearing the strength and ability to fly on their own. By the end of August or early September, they will be ready to begin the long flight down to Aransas!

The results:

This Whooping Crane population, the only self-sustaining one in North America, has seen a steady increase in recent years and now has as many as 500 individuals flying from Wood Buffalo to Aransas, Texas every year. 2021 was a terrific summer and marks the first time since conservation actions to conserve Whooping Cranes began that over 100 nests in total were counted, with at least 50% of the crane nests yielding surviving Whooping Crane chicks seen during survey flights. Parks Canada and the Canadian Wildlife Service are excited to continue seeing the species recover in the months and years ahead.

  • We still need help!

    Work on the crowdsourcing of thousands of satellite photos is still underway and help is still needed to continue sifting through these images on Zooniverse. Virtual volunteers can still sign up to take part, so be sure to visit and signup: Help Us Look for Whooping Cranes.

    Want to learn more about Whooping Cranes? Visit the Wood Buffalo National Park website!

     

Share

Citizen scientists wanted for counting Whooping Crane nests at WBNP

by
Citizen scientists
Whooping Crane sitting on nest. Note crane in center of photo. ©Parks Canada / Wood Buffalo National Park. (2016)

The Whooping Crane nesting season is well underway at Wood Buffalo National Park (WBNP) and things are looking positive while biologists are in the midst of the annual Whooping Crane nesting survey. This spring, they are able to conduct their survey using helicopters, while following safe Covid-19 protocols. So in the next few weeks, we hope to know their results and how many nests were observed within and outside the park.

In the meantime, there is something that you will be interested in doing. Counting Whooping Crane nests. Yes, you read that correctly!

Citizen scientists wanted

The Canadian Wildlife Service (CWS), Parks Canada (PC) and other organizations are working collaboratively to investigate the use of high-resolution satellite imagery to detect nesting cranes as an alternative method to monitor the breeding population.

Biologist are looking for volunteers (you!) to help them quickly review over 100,000 small satellite images through an online crowdsourcing platform to identify possible nest locations. Your results will be reviewed by biologists and will be used to identify, manage and conserve new breeding areas not previously identified and to refine methods to monitor and manage this endangered species.

Citizen scientists
Nesting pair of whooping cranes and nest with two eggs. © 2016 Photo by Parks Canada and Canadian Wildlife Service – L. Parker (2018)
whooping crane images
Adult whooping crane incubating eggs. © Photo by Parks Canada and Canadian Wildlife Service – L. Parker (2018)

How to become involved

Want to get involved and be a citizen scientist and help out the biologists? Just go to Zooniverse. Once there, you can register, do a tutorial and once that is done, you are ready to begin your own nesting survey. Who wouldn’t want to participate doing that!

Zooniverse is the world’s largest and most popular platform for people-powered research. This research is made possible by volunteers — more than a million people around the world who come together to assist professional researchers.

***** FOTWW’s mission is to help preserve and protect the Aransas/Wood Buffalo
population of wild whooping cranes and their habitat. *****

Friends of the Wild Whoopers is a nonprofit 501(c)3 organization.

fall migration
friendsofthewildwhoopers.org
Share

COVID cancels annual surveys at Wood Buffalo National Park

by

Several people have asked Friends of the Wild Whoopers, (FOTWW) about the nesting and fledgling surveys annually conducted on the nesting grounds at Wood Buffalo National Park, (WBNP). We now have an answer for those interested and asking.

We contacted the park and Rhona Kindopp, Resource Conservation Manager at WBNP informed us that unfortunately the regular summer surveys were cancelled in 2020 due to COVID. She stated that they will be looking forward to resuming whooping crane nest and fledgling surveys next year. She also mentioned that currently their colleagues at the Canadian Wildlife Service, (CWS) are conducting some monitoring of migration in Saskatchewan. If we receive any news or information from CWS, we will be more than happy to pass the news on to everyone.

We know everyone looks forward to the news and photos out of Wood Buffalo NP. So not to leave you disappointed we will share with you some photos taken during previous surveys. We hope you enjoy them as much now as you did when they were originally posted.

Wood Buffalo National Park
Whooping crane nesting habitat on Wood Buffalo. Photo by Klaus Nigge
Wood Buffalo National Park.
Whooping Crane habitat on Wood Buffalo National Park. photo by Jane Peterson WBNP
Wood Buffalo National Park.
Photo: courtesy of Parks Canada and John McKinnon
Wood Buffalo National Park
Two adults and one juvenile whooping crane. Photo: John McKinnon / ©2014 Parks Canada /Wood Buffalo National Park.

***** FOTWW’s mission is to help preserve and protect the Aransas/Wood Buffalo
population of wild whooping cranes and their habitat. *****

Friends of the Wild Whoopers is a nonprofit 501(c)3 organization.

fall migration
friendsofthewildwhoopers.org
Share

Operation Whooping Crane – A Bit of History

by

by Pam Bates

In 1966, official concern over the vulnerability of the Whooping Crane population led to a joint agreement between Canadian Wildlife Service, (CWS) and the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, (USFWS) to collaborate on a captive-breeding program to conserve the species. To accomplish this, eggs would have to be removed from nests in the wild at Wood Buffalo National Park, (WBNP) and the man chosen and best suited for this task was wildlife biologist, Ernie Kuyt who worked for the Canadian Wildlife Service.

The whooping crane nesting area, a maze of water and land. Click photo to enlarge.

For eleven years, Bob Isbister worked for the Canadian Wildlife Service and for three years worked the flights during the whooping crane egg collection. Following is a memory of Bob’s during the egg collection at WBNP and working with Ernie Kuyt.

Friends of the Wild Whoopers thanks Bob for allowing us to share his memories and photos by USFWS and National Geographic.

Operation Whooping Crane by Bob Isbister

I worked for CWS for 11 years (1967 to 1978) as Wildlife Technician in the Surveys and Enforcement section (we rarely engaged in enforcement). I then left to pursue my ambition to go to university, graduating in 1981 with a Commerce Degree and have spent the ensuing years in the field of Economic Development.

206 Bird Dog Plane

My job in the bird dog plane was to record the reaction of the adult whooping cranes during the whooping crane egg pick up. How far they flew away etc. They all stayed within a few hundred yards, hence the importance of Ernie’s weekly, then daily flights to the nesting grounds. For the first couple of years, I had to take a “tourist” with me, either a scientist and once a well known National Geographic photographer.

The late Ernie Kuyt and the pilot had mastered locating most of the nests. Ernie conducted several pre-pick up flights to monitor egg laying. The plan was to pick up the eggs late in the incubation period to minimize the chance of the adults abandoning the nest.

The daily preflight briefing to learn the exact nest locations and the order in which they will be visited. Click on photo to enlarge.
The helicopter flying low over the whooping crane nesting grounds in search of nests containing eggs. You can see the helicopter in the lower right quadrant. Click on photo to enlarge.

Now this wasn’t easy flying, as we had to fly “orbits” while the chopper was on the ground for the whooping crane egg pick up. With about 14 nests done in 2 days, this represents a lot of turning, often made worse by turbulence. Luckily, I have pretty much an iron gut for this, but these poor guys invariably got sick and didn’t always hit the bag.

Operation Whooping Crane
That is me on the float on the 206, feeling mighty green under the gills. Pit stop at four mile lake south of Fort Smith. The egg pick up was done in two stages so as not to imperil all the eggs at once in the event of a chopper failure. This was the second year of the pickup operation (1968) and everyone was hyper vigilant. Click on photo to enlarge.

I remember lying down on the dock thinking “no way in hell I’m going back up in the afternoon”. But after a few minutes and the pilots call to “lets go to town and get some bacon and eggs, away I went, brand new again.

A sock and a stick

There is cute story about the officials designing a special box to help Ernie carry the whooping crane eggs from the nest to the helicopter. Upon seeing this ‘special’ box, Ernie said “Hell I’m not going to carry that thing in the marsh I’ve got a wool sock which is way better!” So he brought an extra woolen sock and proceeded to carry the eggs out, one by one. It was quite the sight seeing Ernie with the sock, egg inside in one hand and a stick for trudging back through the marsh in the other hand.

Ernie Kuyt approaching a nest (located in upper right) as helicopter waits. Click on photo to enlarge.
Ernie Kuyt, Canadian Wildlife Service, carries a whooping crane egg in a sock to a waiting helicopter at Wood Buffalo National Park, Canada. Click on photo to enlarge.

Traveling in style and the press

Eggs flying in style thanks to the Goverment of Canada to Laurel, Maryland. From L to R, Ray Erickson, Director Patuxent Research Centre and Glen Smart Asst Director. Click on photo to enlarge.
This operation was a big deal and attracted the press at every fuel stop. At the time the Whooping Cranes were in big trouble with only about 40 still alive. Click on photo to enlarge.

Overall, a very successful international project. Today there are an estimated 506 Whooping Cranes in the Aransas Wood Buffalo population.

Four Mile Lake

Four Mile Lake, just a few miles SE of Fort Smith, NWT. Click photo to enlarge.

The last memory and comment is about Four Mile Lake; it is about 1 mile long and maybe 400 yards wide, oriented NNW by SSE. There was marker buoy at both ends of the lake about 300 yards before the end. If you weren’t airborne by then it was abort time. Theoretically that is!

One afternoon we took off to the south in the freshly fueled 206 heading south. We were still on the water at the abort buoy, but undeterred the pilot pulled into the air; now I must say that those small black spruce that rimmed the lake never looked so tall. We cleared them and then the plane sunk to just above the muskeg where we coaxed more airspeed and altitude and away we went. I’ve never liked the 206 since!

 

Editor’s note: We hope you enjoyed this historical article but Friends of the Wild Whoopers opposes egg collection from the nests of the wild whooping crane flock.

***** FOTWW’s mission is to help preserve and protect the Aransas/Wood Buffalo
population of wild whooping cranes and their habitat. *****

Friends of the Wild Whoopers is a nonprofit 501(c)3 organization.

fall migration
friendsofthewildwhoopers.org
                                                                   

Share