Wisconsin Journal Number 8 31 October 1997 It's Halloween, and I think the doorbell's stopped ringing. (It's around 9pm.) I think we had in excess of 50 trick-or-treaters, from toddlers through college students. I'm amazed at the Halloween displays some people put on. There is a house not far from us that had 26 pumpkins, all carved, already lit almost two weeks ago. I took the family to check it out last night, and they were up to 60 pumpkins, including a few of the hundred-pound variety. Another house has its front door replaced with a coffin, and you enter by opening the lid. Down the block, Sarah spotted someone with a string of Christmas lights along their porch railing, with a carved gourd or miniature pumpkin over each. The best we saw was in the town of Mount Horeb where someone had a witch flying in their yard (strung about 15 feet up between two oak trees), some legs coming out from under the porch, and a second witch roasting a cat on a spit. We feel like real pikers with just one jack-o-lantern out. Fall colors have been a bit of a disappointment. I guess it has been warmer and wetter that usual, with the result that the leaves stayed green on the trees. Then with the snow and cold weather last week, a number of trees just shed all their leaves while they were still green. There's a catalpa in our yard that dropped all its foliage in about one three hour period earlier this week. There are a few maples that are turning yellow and red, but I don't expect any big show of color at this point. Kaye and I did drive through the UW Arboretum a few Sundays ago, and did see a lot of shrubs that were bright red. When I can, I try to take Wednesdays off and go play with Kaye. Earlier in the month we took off up to Wisconsin Dells. It must be a real madhouse in the high season. Big competition on miniature golf, water parks and boat trips. Much of that had shut down for the season, and, in fact, we had a hard time finding lunch, as those restaurants that hadn't closed for the season seemed to be open only evenings or weekends. There is an Indian trading post that has an extensive selection of Ho-Chunk baskets. Kaye had been there a couple times before, and learned a lot about basket styles from the owner, and has been back since for a gathering featuring Indian artisans, Indian weddings and naming ceremony, and traditional dances. The Ho-Chunks have a large casino south of town, and one wonders how much interest will remain in traditional crafts when the pay is probably pretty good as a casino worker. The highlight of the day, however, was our visit to the International Crane Foundation, between the Dells and Baraboo. The ICF was founded in 1973 to protect cranes and their habitats. They have all 15 species of cranes on exhibit, including Whooping Cranes and dramatic looking Crowned Cranes. (They look like they have pincushions on their heads.) In the chick yard we got to see four young Brolga cranes in various stages of development. Baby cranes can grow up to an inch a day, and the difference in the young ones we saw who were only a week apart was dramatic. Two of the young cranes we saw were nearly fully fledged, and one had its wings clipped on one side to keep it from trying to fly away. They were out in a "corral" with a volunteer, who would periodically make crane noises and run around flapping her arms, trying to get the young ones to run with her and get some exercise. All of the youngsters were intensely interested when a flock of geese flew overhead. ICF is involved in a number of captive breeding and reintroduction programs for different crane species. The have a "Crane City" where over 100 cranes are being raised, but that part is away from the public areas. ICF had has one of three breeding flocks of Whooping Cranes, which was started in 1989 by splitting the flock at Patuxent Wildlife Research Center in Maryland, because of worries about having all ones eggs in the same basket, so to speak. The other breeding flock is in Calgary. Crane breeding is a demanding undertaking. First you need an egg. Here you have two choices--borrow one, or get two cranes to make you one. Researchers noticed that cranes in the wild typically lay two eggs each season, but almost always only one survives. So some lucky person gets to try to snatch one of the eggs for incubation in captivity. The equipment includes goggles, so you don't get your eyes pecked out, leather chaps to avoid being gouged by their claws, and tennis shoes for a fast escape. Most of the eggs from captive cranes are the result of artificial insemination, because males raised in enclosures don't always have strong enough wings for the direct method, which involves balancing on the female's back. However, the female won't ovulate until she has chosen a mate and the mate has performed mating dances. As cranes can live upwards of 50 years, and appear to mate for life, they are choosy about picking mates. A female won't choose a mate whom she can dominate physically, but on the other hand, the male can't be too aggressive or the female will get scared. The ICF has one woman on staff who seems to have the knack for crane matchmaking, and can usually predict which pairs will hit it off based on her observations of their behavior. Once a pair has selected each other as mates, it is then possible to collect semen from the male and inseminate the female after they start their mating behavior. However, you still have to figure out what environmental cues trigger breeding. For example, the Brolgas are triggered by monsoon rains, so they get stimulated by showering them in their pens. Siberian cranes are sensitive to the long days of summer, so they get floodlights at night to simulate the midnight sun. Both the female and male have nest-building instincts and will spend time incubating the eggs. We saw a display about one male who came late in his life to ICF and who didn't have a mate. However, he did build a nest and try to brood two large white rocks he found. Cranes are happy to be raised by people, and a number of the birds we saw actually seemed quite interested in us, walking over to the sides of their cages nearest to us to get a closer look. However, if you are going to introduce cranes into the wild, they have to know they are birds and not people. Thus, when chicks are first hatched, they need to imprint on a crane rather than a person. If the parents are around, no problem, but what do you do with an egg taken from the wild? One possiblity is to use foster parents-- sneak the egg into the nest of a mated pair. Sandhill Cranes, which are native to Wisconsin and not endangered, are often used for this job and for other ICF studies. The other technique, which ICF pioneered, involves the use of crane hand-puppets to interact with chicks during the first days of their lives. The puppet has enough distinguishing features to make the chicks recognize other, real cranes as "same as Mom". The puppets are used throughout the raising of young cranes to show them where to look for food outdoors. Kaye went back a few weeks later with Sarah, and she said that the young cranes still got quite excited when the puppet came out. Okay, so you have cranes knowing they are cranes and not people, which is useful when it comes to mating time (but see below). However, it's still a problem if the cranes are accustomed to humans if they are going to be reintroduced into the wild. Thus, ICF has been working on raising cranes that are completely isolated from humans. When the cranes are ready to go on field trips, they are accompanied by a researcher wearing a full crane costume and emitting taped crane calls. We saw videos of some of the costumes, and they are about as realistic as Big Bird. However, the point is not so much that the researcher look exactly like a crane as that he look decidely not like a human. Part of the training actually involved being threatend by uncostumed humans. In these arranged encounters, people come charging out of the bushes making lots of noise. Momma Bird acts alarmed and runs, to teach the young cranes to flee from humans, but then she turns around and flaps and shrieks at the humans and drives them off, so the little ones don't get too scared, I guess. Whooping Cranes are a major concern of ICF. In the 1940's they almost vanished, with only a couple dozen birds left in the wild. Now there are over 200 birds, but there is still a lot to do. When conservation efforts began, there was one wild flock, which migrated between the coast of Texas and the Northwest Territories in Canada. This flock has come back from the edge of extinction, but could be wiped out by an oil spill, hurricane or disease. Thus there is high interest in establishing other wild populations. There is a non-migratory flock that is being established in Florida, but how do you establish a separate migratory flock? One attempt has been to place Whooping Crane eggs in the nests of wild Sandhill Cranes, to see if those birds will migrate with the wild flock. It turns out they will, but none of the birds so raised have managed to pair up. The other idea currently being tried is to use an ultralight aircraft to teach the birds a migration route. (Remind you of something you saw in the movies?) This approach was tried first with Sandhill Cranes raised in captivity, and was shown to work. Some of you may have seen a news article recently where a combined group of Sandhill and Whooping Cranes were able to make a southern migration following an ultralight (there were some casulties). However, the goal of establishing a new population of breeding, migrating cranes still remains. On Kaye's second trip to ICF, she learned some additional crane lore, by eavesdropping on an Animal Behavior class from UW up there on a field trip. One is that mated cranes will often act in unision, moving, feeding and calling at the same time. Another was the story of Tex (a female), who was the offspring in captivity of parents taken from the wild. It was highly desirable that Tex mate, to preserve her genetic line. However, she had been raised in a zoo before coming to ICF, and was imprinted on humans and wanted nothing to do with other cranes. What to do? Find her a human mate. It turned out that the director of ICF, George Archibald, had a beard much like Tex's original keeper. So he moved in with her, spending 15 hours a day in her pen for six weeks, trying to act like good husband material, which included building nests with grass and twigs he found. She went for him, and gave birth to one chick, through artificial insemination. (There's only so far George could keep up the pretense.) Tex is now dead, but Gee-Whiz, the child, lives on. George is now known among local Indians as "Dances with Cranes." Those of you who have read this far might want to browse ICF's web page some time: . Anyway, the trip concluded with a visit to the Baraboo Candy Company, home of the giant Chocolate Cow Pie. (Think about it. If a cow is making chocolate milk, what do you imagine comes out the back?) I'll finish here, as I have to get ready to head off to Manitowoc on Lake Michigan tomorrow. Unfortunately, that means I will miss the "Jello 100th Anniversary Potluck" at my church on Sunday. I kid you not. The choices on the sign-up sheet are Jello-with-fruit, Jello-with- vegetables, plain Jello and Jello desserts. What, no Jello shooters? All for now, Dave