Story by David Hoover
USACE, Kansas City District
The Aransas-Wood Buffalo population of whooping cranes nests and rears their young in Wood Buffalo National Park, Alberta/Northwest Territories, Canada, during spring and summer. After the chicks fledge, adults and juveniles migrate 2,500 miles through seven states to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Aransas National Wildlife Refuge on the Gulf Coast of Texas where they spend the winter.
Cranes must stop 15 to 30 times to rest and feed during their migration. Radio telemetry conducted by the U.S. Geological Survey and direct field observation has documented migration stopovers that often occur in habitats associated with water resources development projects managed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers throughout the migration corridor.
The founder and president of the non-profit Friends of the Wild Whoopers, (FOTWW), Chester McConnell worked with Dr. Richard Fischer of the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center; Jeremy Crossland, USACE Headquarters land uses and natural resources program manager; and Michael Champaign, USACE, Fort Worth District biologist, to develop and finalize a Memorandum of Understanding between the Corps of Engineers and FOTWW to assess whooping crane migration stopover habitat and identify measures to maintain or improve that habitat on water resources development projects in the migration corridor.
To read David Hoover’s complete article about the USACE/FOTWW partnership and “stopover habitat” project, click here and scroll to Pages 34-35.
***** 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.
