This Way Survival: An ultralight plane piloted by an Operation Migration team member guiding whooping cranes from Wisconsin to their winter nesting grounds in Florida.
…How, then, do you restore wildlife without simultaneously taming it? One way is to do it in disguise.
From the time Operation Migration’s cranes hatch at the federal government’s Patuxent Wildlife Research Center in Maryland, and for the rest of their lives, every effort is made to keep them from acclimating to humans or encountering even the slightest sign of them. Workers never speak around the cranes, and they always wear the same white costumes. They use a small crane-head puppet slipped over one hand to teach the chicks how to peck and forage. Gradually, the cranes “imprint” on the costume, accepting whoever is wearing it as the dominant bird in their cohort. — NY Times
