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THEBACHA/FORT SMITH
A juvenile whooping crane died earlier this month just days after suffering an injury during a banding project in Wood Buffalo National Park.

A whooping crane chick walks away after being banded in Wood Buffalo National Park. A coloured identification band and a federal leg band are attached to its left leg, while a GPS transmitter is attached to its right leg. - photo courtesy of Parks Canada

An investigation - involving an examination of the bird's carcass - is underway to determine why the member of the endangered species died and if the banding operation played a role.

Stuart Macmillan, manager of resource conservation with Wood Buffalo, said the incident is of great concern.

"This is the first time that one of these chicks appears to have died a few days after handling, and so the question is what was the exact cause of death and was it a result of this capture process," he said.

The young whooper was the 31st to be banded in the three-year project, which was wrapping up with that bird.

"We don't want the research itself to present a threat to the crane," Macmillan said. "Everyone is quite concerned about this happening and, while this type of research is necessary, we need to make sure that we learn from the incident and improve the handling of the birds and the protocols that are used."

The existing protocol was reviewed by experts in the field and the chance of this type of situation happening was deemed to be quite remote, he noted. "But still it has happened, we need to learn from that."

The crane was captured and banded on Aug. 1. On Aug. 4, the GPS that had been attached to the bird's leg indicated there might be a problem because it was not moving. The crane's carcass was recovered on Aug. 7.

Macmillan said the chick was injured while being captured.

"What happened is the chick appears to have wounded itself with one of its talons, with its foot, near its lower mandible," he said.

The mandible is where the neck meets the beak.

After a five-person capture crew landed in a helicopter, there was the usual chase period, which is limited in duration to lessen the chick's stress level.

"It appears that during this period when the crew was trying to capture the chick and the chick was of course moving away from the crew that's when it was injured," Macmillan said.

In such a banding operation, a hood is put over the crane's head to calm it down, and, after the banding is finished, the hood is removed just prior to release.

"It was at this point that the injury was noted," Macmillan said. "It wasn't that obvious immediately."

A veterinarian, who was part of the crew, stitched up the injury and provided antibiotics to the chick.

The dead bird has been sent for a necropsy by a pathologist at the Canadian Co-operative Wildlife Health Centre, which is part of the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon.

Macmillan is hopeful results will be back in the next few weeks.

The goal of the research is to gain a better idea of whooping crane ecology, about breeding, wintering and migration ecology, Macmillan said.

In particular, the research is designed to gather information on the sources of mortality for first-year chicks as they migrate to wintering grounds in Texas.

The banding is done on the breeding grounds in Wood Buffalo before the young birds have learned to fly and they are easier to catch.

Even though the birds are just a few months old, they would still be about three or four feet high, Macmillan noted.

The banding project involved Parks Canada and the Canadian Wildlife Service, along with a number of American organizations - the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Crane Trust, the Platte River Recovery Implementation Program, the U.S. Geological Survey, the Gulf Coast Bird Observatory and the International Crane Foundation.

Adult whooping cranes are banded on their wintering grounds in Texas, and Macmillan is not aware of any problems there.

However, he noted, "the chicks are probably more delicate."

There are approximately 300 whooping cranes in the Wood Buffalo flock.

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