BLOOMINGTON - Whooping cranes have migrated across North America for millions of years, but the endangered birds have needed a little help recently.

Central Illinois soon will have a front row seat on efforts to introduce more cranes into the wild to ensure the survival of the species.

A fleet of four ultralight aircraft and a small Cessna airplane are leading 14 whooping cranes from their fledging ground at Necedah National Wildlife Refuge in Wisconsin to wintering grounds at the Chassahowitzka National Wildlife Refuge in Florida.

In previous years, Operation Migration has turned eastward near the Illinois River and traveled south over Indiana, missing The Pantagraph area. But the 2008 route will travel north to south across Illinois with planned stops in Winnebago, LaSalle, Livingston, Piatt, Cumberland and Wayne counties. The path is as direct as weather permits, so a flyover of a portion of McLean County is expected.

Exact stopover locations are not disclosed to limit contact between humans and the birds and protect the privacy of their host landowners. But progress is logged each day on the Operation Migration Web site. Recommendations for the best locations for viewing are often given.

The project has introduced 69 birds into the wild since 2001. The goal is to eventually reach the self-sustaining level of 125 individual birds and 25 breeding pairs. At that point, the flock will become the second self-sustaining migrating group of whooping cranes in North America.

Illinois State University biology professor Angelo Capparella, who is active in the John Wesley Powell chapter of the Audubon Society, said historic records list whooping cranes as an "abundant migrant" in Illinois in the 1870s, but they were a "rare migrant" by the 1890s due to pressure from habitat loss and unregulated hunting.

"The whooping cranes used to use the skies over McLean County over a century ago, but they disappeared. The idea they are going to come back and use our skies again is very exciting," he said.

The schedule called for the 2008 migration to begin on Friday, but no word was available late last week on whether conditions were right to permit the birds to get underway. Operation Migration spokeswoman Heather Ray and project co-founder Joe Duff could not predict when the cranes will reach The Pantagraph area. The birds average just 50 miles a day at best, and it takes eight days of flight to reach Central Illinois.

"We've never ever run eight days in a row," said Duff, who pilots one of the ultralights. "Last year, we moved the birds the first day and stayed (put) the next 11 days."

The total distance to Florida is 1,285 miles and takes 23 days in the air to complete. But the 2007 migration took nearly 100 days to have enough days of good weather. The first migration took about half that time, and the trip has been longer every year since then. The new route is an attempt to find a faster way.

Operation Migration's work begins each spring. Conservation workers don white costumes to limit human interaction while they work with young birds hatched in captivity. Practice flights train cranes to follow the ultralight aircraft.

As an experiment this year, Operation Migration scientists hope another half dozen birds that did not go through the rearing process will follow along. If so, less time will be needed to prepare for each migration in the future and perhaps more birds can be introduced into the flock faster.

Duff said the wings of whooping cranes are designed so the birds soar on wind currents like eagles rather than power themselves forward by flapping like geese. As a result, travel is limited to the first two or three hours of each day when wind is dead calm so the ultralight planes in the lead can create air currents behind them to help the birds stay aloft, he said. Even a light breeze can ground the birds to avoid crashes between the whooping cranes and the planes.

"If it gets bumpy up there, you have a problem," Duff said.

The Cessna crew scouts weather conditions ahead of the main group and watches for stragglers or for birds that veer off from the group. GPS co-ordinates help ultralight pilots find the birds and lead them back to the pack. The cranes are kept in portable pens at night.

The Whooping Crane Eastern Partnership launched the reintroduction effort in the 1990s after concern rose whooping cranes could become extinct if a natural disaster or accident decimated the only self-sustaining flock in North America at that time. Now numbering 227, that flock migrates between Canada and Texas.

The International Crane Foundation says whooping cranes once ranged from central Canada to Mexico and from Utah to the Atlantic coast. As many as 1,400 of the birds existed in the mid-1800s. Their numbers plummeted in the second half of the 19th century. By World War II, the species numbered just 16 birds in southwestern Louisiana.

First reintroduction efforts in the 1970s that tried to use sandhill cranes as foster parents were unsuccessful. In the early 1990s, scientists released 33 birds in Florida to create another non-migrating flock, which numbers more than 50 today.

Meanwhile an ultralight pilot named William Lishman began to experiment with leading wild geese with his plane. Lishman enlisted his friend, Duff, to help. The film, "C'mon Geese," documented their work. Scientists then approached them with an idea to use the concept with whooping cranes.

The work fascinates Duff, who began as a pilot and grew to love working with the birds.

"This is a very ancient species," he said. "You really get to work close to them…When you get to accompany them on a migration that has been going on millions of years, it is a huge privilege."

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How to help

Help Operation Migration ensure the survival of endangered whooping cranes by being a MileMaker. Project organizers took the total cost of the migration, divided by the total number of miles, to determine that one mile of the trip can be paid for with a donation of $208, a half-mile by a donation of $104 and a quarter mile with a donation of $52.

Learn more at www.operationmigration.org/mile_makers.htm

The JWP Chapter of the Audubon Society based in Bloomington is raising money to adopt the 22 miles of the route that will fly over McLean County. The chapter has collected $2,280, enough for 11 miles. Send checks made out to JWP Audubon to PO Box 142, Normal, 61761.

Track the cranes

Visit www.operationmigration.org for daily updates on Operation Migration's progress.