Frederica Freyberg:
Another environmental story about wildlife is making headlines this week. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is offering a $2500 reward for information about who shot and killed an extremely rare bird while it was in flight migrating from Wisconsin. Someone shot the female whooping crane in this so-called first family of cranes. It was found dead in Indiana. The 7-year-old crane, identified by a leg band, was the only female to have hatched and raised with her mate a wild whooping crane chick. While the matriarch of the first family learned to migrate behind ultralight planes, her chick migrated following its family. The crane that was shot was among 19 whooping cranes migrating from their summer grounds near Necedah, Wisc. to their wintering grounds in Florida. There are about 500 whooping cranes left in the world. It is an endangered species. With this particular female bird being called “likely the most important bird in the entire eastern migratory population.” International Crane Foundation’s Joan Garland joins us now by phone. Thank you so much for doing so.

Joan Garland:
Thank you, Frederica.

Frederica Freyberg:
Why is this female identified, I understand, as 1702, considered the most important bird?

Joan Garland:
Well, number 1702, and her mate, number 1102, as you had mentioned, were dubbed the “first family.” These two cranes are to date our only successful breeding pair of whooping cranes in the eastern migratory population. The two of them successfully hatched two chicks in 2006, and one of those chicks survived the fledgling, which means that chick was able to fly south. So right now the goal of this reintroduction project is really to establish a self-sustaining population of whooping cranes. And considering that this pair was our only successful breeding pair to date, this is truly a tragic loss for the project.

Frederica Freyberg:
Because I understand that the International Crane Foundation's field manager from Wisconsin discovered that this crane was missing while flying over Indiana. What was the reaction to this news?

Joan Garland:
She had originally discovered the pair. She had seen them from the air during an aerial flight on November 28. And the pair were together in a wetland in Indiana. And on her return flight back north to Wisconsin on Dec. 1, she picked up the radio signal of the male, but was unable to hear the radio signal of the female. At first she wasn't too alarmed because the bird could have been standing in water, which would have made the signal faint. But unfortunately then when she actually got a visual on the male, the female was nowhere to be found, and that is quite unusual with a pair of whooping cranes. They will generally mate for life and they're usually very close to one another with the exception of during the breeding season, when one will leave the other one on the nest to go and find food. They're generally very close to one another. So when she only saw the male, she got very alarmed, of course, and was afraid something might have happened. At that point she contacted the other radio tracker that was a couple hours away and unfortunately then that woman was able to find the carcass of number 1702.

Frederica Freyberg:
Help us understand how fragile this species is.

Joan Garland:
Sure. The whooping crane population right now in the wild, there's only about 360 whooping cranes in the wild. This particular population, the eastern flock that goes between Wisconsin and Florida is numbering about only 85 birds. They are one of the most endangered bird species in the world. So whenever we lose one of these cranes, of course it is a loss, but in this case it was especially tragic.

Frederica Freyberg:
And how are people at the International Crane Foundation dealing with this? I trust that, as always, they will go on and persist in their efforts.

Joan Garland:
Absolutely. You know, everybody is, again, we're very shocked and saddened. But if anything it always is sort of a case of more resolve to continue on in our efforts and continue on in this project. Again, you know, we're continuing forward. Right now the field team from operation migration is leading 20 whooping cranes south behind ultralight aircraft. Another nine are making their first journey on their own as part of a project called the direct autumn release. So right now there are 29 young whooping cranes making this migration for the first time. So in cases like this, in cases of these losses, it always does make us go forward.

Frederica Freyberg:
All right. Joan, thanks very much for your time on this.

Joan Garland:
Thank you.