Crane Migration

Guest: John French, PhD, Biologist and Director at the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center  The brilliant-white whooping crane is among nature’s most majestic birds and the tallest in North America, standing nearly five feet. They’re also endangered. So for the past 15 years, government biologists have been breeding whopping cranes in captivity and teaching them to migrate south to Florida in what seems like an outlandish experiment: Picture a guy dressed head to toe in a white suit to hide his human-ness – he even has a fake beak on his white-hooded head. And he’s leading a flock of cranes to their southern destination in one of those tiny, super-light-weight aircraft that’s more like a bicycle with wings. And the craziest thing is that it worked, but not without consequences.