Canadian Wildlife Service

2022 Wood Buffalo Survey Results 96 Nests, 61 Colts

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Each year, Canadian Wildlife Service (CWS) and Parks Canada staff conduct aerial surveys over the extensive wetlands of Wood Buffalo National Park, (WBNP) 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.

Nesting Range Expanding

Whooping crane Survey Results
Nesting pair of whooping cranes and nest © Photo by Parks Canada and Canadian Wildlife Service – L. Parker Click photo to enlarge.

Parks Canada and CWS were in the air again this past Spring and late summer of 2022 searching for whooping crane nests and crane chicks amongst the extensive wetlands of the park. Water levels on the nesting territory were higher than normal for the 2022 whooping crane nesting season. However, park and wildlife officials were still able to observe 96 nests during their spring nesting survey. 13 of those nests were found outside of the boundary of WBNP and 26 nests were outside of existing identified critical habitat (range expansion).

61 Colts will make their first migration

Wood Buffalo National Park. Survey Results
Photo: courtesy of Parks Canada and John McKinnon

During the summer, 61 colts were counted during the fledgling survey. Of the 61 counted, 11 families were observed having 2 colts. So if you see a higher number of “twins” wintering with their parents in Texas this year, you’ll know why.

CWS and Parks Canada cooperate to survey the Aransas Wood Buffalo breeding population. Annual monitoring of nests and fledgling numbers, estimates of the breeding population size and annual reproductive success, respectively, have been conducted in WBNP since 1966 via aerial surveys. Record numbers of nests (nearing 100) have been recorded in recent years. The long term 20-year average of fledgling survival is 0.49 fledglings per nest (so 2022 was a very good year compared to the average in terms of nest and fledgling success).

 

***** 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.

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Wood Buffalo National Park Whooping Crane Conservation Update

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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!

     

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Citizen scientists wanted for counting Whooping Crane nests at WBNP

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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.

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friendsofthewildwhoopers.org
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COVID cancels annual surveys at Wood Buffalo National Park

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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
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