May 15, 2025
Episode 15
A Great Experiment
Eva & Sara
Not all heroes wear capes, but some wear costumes. In this episode, Mike chats with Eva Szyszkoski and Sara Zimorski, biologists with the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, who have been working on whooping crane reintroduction efforts for over 14 years.
Episode Extras
Welcome to the “Wild,” Whoopers
Whooping crane chicks have been hand-reared and costume raised at the Freeport McMoran Audubon Species Survival Center in New Orleans, Louisiana. Now, it’s time for them to be released into the White Lake Wetlands Conservation Area of Louisiana to mature into independent and wild birds.
One final health check, then the birds take a three-hour trip from New Orleans to White Lake WCA to get their bands and telemetry.
A soft-release enclosure, supplemental food, and support from costumed Mama Crane transitions them gradually. As food gets weaned away, the young whoopers venture further out until they are self-reliant.
Louisiana Landscape
This Louisiana flock of birds does not migrate–these birds instead live amongst rice fields, crawfish farms, and wetlands year-round. This view from the nest looks pretty different from the migratory flock’s nesting season in remote Wood Buffalo in northern Canada. The extended warm season in the south allows Louisiana birds to nest from as early as February through June.
The female of this pair was the first female to nest and lay eggs in Louisiana in 2014, three years after the reintroduction of this historic non-migratory population began, since it had been wiped out in 1950. Now with another mate since 2018, the pair have raised several chicks.
Check out more nest and landscape timelapse cameras on the Timelapse page.
2025 Chicks!
These images are of chicks that have hatched this spring, and are currently growing up in the Lousiana wetlands.
Sweat, Blood, and Tears…
Read Sara’s essay about bird, L7-11 in her essay on our Voices page.
Episode 14: Building a Better Bird
episode 16: Long Live Cranes