May 15, 2002 The Plane and the Plan This is the second year of a
bold migration experiment to reintroduce whooping cranes where
they used to be over a century ago, The plan is to lead the
chicks with the ultralights on the 1200-mile migration to
Florida. The chicks that follow the ultralight south will become
part of the ancestral flock for the whooping cranes being
reintroduced, or brought back, to the eastern part of North
America. As such, they are part of the Whooping Crane
Reintroduction Project. Many partners work together in this ten-
year plan. The group is called the Whooping Crane Eastern
Partnership (WCEP). That's where the ultralight comes in. The
tiny plane (also called a trike) is both their flight teacher
and their stand-in mother. These ultralights weigh only about
360 pounds. The trikes can fly at crane speed, which is about
32-35 miles per This year, 18 chicks were hatched for this
special project. That's a lot more chicks than the first year of
the project! That, of course, is going to affec