Eggs-citing News From Our Favorite Whooping Crane!
May is a time for celebrations: Graduations, birthdays, teacher appreciation week, Mother's Day and more. We’re also celebrating good news about our favorite animal mother!
Whooping crane #38-17, who flew into history as the first whooping crane known to survive a Wisconsin winter, is nesting again in Wisconsin with her mate #63-15, making it two years in a row. Last year, #38-17 hatched and successfully fledged the first wild whooping crane chick in Horicon Marsh.
On April 27, 2021, airplane pilot Bev Paulan saw #38-17 tending a nest in Horicon Marsh with two eggs visible. That’s pretty eggs-citing! There are only 808 whooping cranes in the world and 80 in the reintroduced population nesting in Wisconsin.
But we’re not counting our cranes just yet. Nest failures are fairly common for whooping cranes, and even if the eggs hatch, the chicks have to survive their first few perilous months in Wisconsin before heading south. Food, predators and weather can all be a problem.
But if anybody -- er, any bird, is going to see the chicks through, it’s resilient, resourceful #38-17. Read more about this record-setting crane and reintroduction efforts and keep up with them on the International Crane Foundation's website and Facebook page.