Whooping Crane Tour

After our visit to Patuxent Wildlife Refuge with Smita, Akshu and Anand, we returned today for the Whooping Crane Tour we found out about then. I had heard about the whooping cranes on a Radio Lab podcast. They go into great detail in the podcast about how only about 17 whooping cranes were left in the wild. At Patuxent, they started breeding them, to release in the wild. Now, there are hundreds in the wild. They still need our help and Patuxent continues to raise and release them. Many nests are abandoned, because the egg laying season of the whooping crane coincides with black fly season and they bother the cranes, who then abandon their eggs and nest. These eggs are brought to Patuxent so that they can be raised and released. 

First, we went and looked at the exhibit in more detail. They had furs of some animals out for people to touch in the main visitor center area - amongst others (young rabbit, skunk etc), there was the fur of the river otter. The furs were all, pretty similar to touch, in my opinion.

The exhibit is really well done. I like how they have displayed different animals in glass vestibules that had leaves and vines painted on it.

They have larger exhibits on whooping cranes, wolves and a couple of other animals. They are done beautifully!

Once it was time, everyone in the tour group piled into 2 vans and headed to the cages to see the cranes. We drove to the restricted part of the refuge. There are a lot of buildings there, that I assume existed before the area was designated as a wildlife refuge. 

Snowden Hall - Has Crumbling Chimney from 2011 Earthquake

The roads are made narrow between the trees, so that as the trees grow, they can create a thick canopy over the road and reduce fragmentation of forest which is dangerous for species as it opens them up to predation. 

Patuxent Wildlife Refuge

When we got to the enclosure, one of was sitting on its nest. While this pair isn't used for breeding anymore, the female still lays eggs. As we stood around listening to more about whooping cranes and and the refuge, the sitting one got up, and they started walking around

Approaching their water hole

Drinking Water

They volunteers/tour operators talked a lot about the refuge, the work they do there, and the whooping cranes. We spent a lot of time at the enclosures. I love the red on top of the cranes' head. I am excited that we got to see them, though not in the wild and not in the breeding and raising enclosures. But, knowing the story of how they are bred here and then released into the wild is fascinating enough, and I am glad we got to see 2 cranes now retired from the breeding program.

I have my own Whooper.