Four Whopping Cranes were released in the wild in a restocking program. Sadly one was killed. This was in the paper today but I could not find it so a Connecticut paper has the AP Story.
Three young endangered whooping cranes raised in New Orleans are learning about life in the wild — and a fourth got a fatal lesson about its difficulty. Four males were released Nov. 10 in southwest Louisiana, but a predator killed one a few days later, the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries said. “Whoopers” are the world’s rarest cranes and the tallest birds in North America, standing 5 feet (1.5 meters) high from their black feet to the little red caps on their heads. They’re white with black tips on wings spanning 7 feet (2.1 meters). Department biologist Sara Zimorski didn’t know what kind of predator took down the bird, named Blizzard by staffers at the Audubon Species Survival Center in New Orleans. “Whatever killed him might not have been the same animal that then scavenged and consumed the remains. There wasn’t a lot left so it’s hard to say,” she wrote in an email Wednesday.
ctpost.com
It is sad one died so quickly but living in confinement does not equate to the wild.
The three other youngsters bring Louisiana’s flock to 73, the department said in a news release Tuesday. The newcomers were named Hurricane, Lava and Aurora by their keepers on New Orleans’ west bank. But Zimorski said they will be recorded from now on as L2-21, L3-21 and L4-21. They were released in the White Lake Wetlands Conservation Area near Gueydan.
This ids a feel good story and I hope the flock increases.