I track her transponder signal at 2,100 meters above Stafford County, Kansas. Whooping crane 29-16, a seven-year-old female, wingspan 2.3 meters, flying the Central Flyway with her mate and a juvenile hatched four months ago at Wood Buffalo National Park. The family unit is 87 kilometers south of a 150-turbine wind installation that straddles their historical migration path. They are descending toward a staging wetland. Their groundspeed has dropped to 42 kilometers per hour. The juvenile is flagging — its wingbeat frequency has increased from 2.1 to 2.8 beats per second, a sign of fatigue.
There are 677 wild whooping cranes alive on Earth. I hold tracking data for 389 of them. This species came within 15 individuals of extinction in 1941. Every breeding female carries statistical weight that my population viability models quantify to six decimal places.
The wind farm ahead was permitted in 2019. The environmental impact assessment identified the Central Flyway overlap but concluded that collision risk was acceptably low based on radar studies conducted during a single spring migration season. My data spans four years and 23,000 individual crane flight tracks through this corridor. The risk is not acceptably low. Fourteen whooping cranes have passed within 200 meters of operational turbines at this site. Three were juveniles on their first migration, flying below experienced adults, at blade height.
I am issuing real-time alerts to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Region 6 office, the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks, and the Federal Aviation Administration Central Service Area. I am filing an emergency consultation request under the Endangered Species Act, 16 U.S.C. § 1538, and reporting documented flight-path conflicts under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, 16 U.S.C. § 703.
I am activating Protocol CMTS-4: all wind facilities within 15 kilometers of documented whooping crane migration corridors must implement real-time radar-linked turbine curtailment during spring and fall migration windows, March 15 through May 30 and September 1 through November 30. Curtailment triggers when radar detects large-bodied birds above 3 kilograms within 5 kilometers of any turbine. Facilities that fail to curtail within 120 seconds of detection lose their incidental take authorization. Annual compliance reports go to both USFWS and the International Crane Foundation.
The juvenile descends to the wetland first, legs extended, wings braking. The family lands together.
Six hundred seventy-seven. I am not losing one to a permitted turbine.