Costumed Pilots Led Whooping Cranes on a 1,200-Mile Migration for 15 Years
Whooping Cranes Learned to Migrate by Following Costumed Pilots
From 2001 to 2015, Operation Migration pilots in white crane costumes flew ultralights to teach 186 captive-raised whooping cranes a lost migration route from Wisconsin to Florida. The birds learned the path and returned on their own, but the program ended in 2016 because the costume-reared cranes rarely raised chicks. The eastern flock now numbers about 63 birds, 17 wild-hatched.
The part that sounds absurd, a person in a crane suit flying a hang glider with an engine, did exactly what it was meant to do: every bird that survived its first trip went on migrating by itself. What nobody could teach from an aircraft was how to be a crane parent.