Title: Blue Wade - Whooping Crane (Grus americana)
Artist: Jay
Jocham(for further
information, click on the artist's name)
Image size: 22" x 22"
Media: acrylic on rag board
Date: 2004
Current Location of the Painting: Wildes Gallery, Tomah,
WI
The only self-sustaining wild
population of Whooping Cranes breeds
in Wood Buffalo National Park in Northwest Territories,
Canada, and adjacent areas of northeastern Alberta and winters
on the Texas coast. As part of their recovery plan, small
populations have been reintroduced elsewhere, and establishing
migratory routes for these "newcomers" has been
challenging.
Whooping cranes learn their migration route by following
their parents, but when they are reintroduced into new areas
they require human assistance---like following ultralight
aircraft--during migration. By December 2005, the fifth
generation of Whooping Cranes hatched at the Patuxent Wildlife
Research Center in Laurel, Maryland, reared at the Necedah
National Wildlife Refuge, and led during migration by ultralight
craft, reached their wintering grounds in Florida. It is
hoped that this Eastern migratory flock of reintroduced
birds will eventually learn their route and no longer require
ultralights to lead them.
As the artist noted, "The
individual shown here, which I observed in a central Wisconsin
wetland shortly before its fall migration, is part of the
Eastern migratory flock, and among the first to follow ultralight
aircraft from Wisconsin to Florida. Scientific study has
concluded that Whooping Crane survival depends on this second
wintering and breeding location. I
later painted the bird in my central Wisconsin studio thirty
miles from the Necedah Wildlife Refuge. The art was created
with acrylic on rag board using a brush and palette knife."
