A little get away for me!

Last Tuesday and Wednesday I went on a retreat with the Environmental Department from ATC. This was an overnight trip to the Necedah National Wildlife Refuge; about a 2 1/2 hr drive from Green Bay to the south central part of the state. Anyway, this was the first time I had been away from Jackson. I had heard that this was going to be hard but I can honestly say it wasn't. Don't get me wrong, it was hard to say good-bye to him that morning but once I was on my way it felt good to get away and I knew Chris would do well.

If you don't know the plight of the whooping crane it's a fascinating story and the species survival is tied directly to the Necedah National Wildlife Refuge where we got a behind the scenes tour of their rearing and training facility. The jest of the whole operation is that these birds are born and raised at this facility (or transported their as young chicks) where they are taught to eat, drink and fly by people dressed up as whooping cranes! They never are exposed to human contact. These little birds grow into adults thinking these humans in white sheets with a fake beak on their hand are their mom! It gets even more unbelievable...these birds number only about 16 in 1940 due to hunting. In 2001 the US Fish and Wildlife Service began a reintroduction plan for the cranes but the problem was that these birds didn't know how to migrate from WI to FL where they over-winter. Until they could learn to migrate they were not truly "wild" birds that could sustain a new population. To resolve the problem a biologist (Joe Duff) came up with the plan to take the "mom" crane (human in a white sheet) put them in an ultra-light airplane and have the birds follow the plan as it went to FL in the fall, thus learning to migrate. Believe it or not, it worked. And after only flying to FL once the birds migrated back to WI that next spring and have done so the 6 years since. And each year the plane takes a new set of birds to FL to learn the migration route. Needless to say their numbers are on the rise...about 200 pairs to date. It was a GREAT time and what a wonderful and positive story. If you want the better version of this reintroduction story go to the website for Operation Migration at http://www.operationmigration.org/index.html

Jackson came through his first night without mom just fine....dad too : ) However, Maggee is having some issues and has now destroyed two of Jackson's pacifiers. I think she's a little jealous lately so we're going to take her and Gabby to the State Parks we're going to tour over Labor Day weekend. Hope that helps with the chewing!!!