Raising Crane

Summary

Radiolab – Raising Crane (December 4, 2012)
WNYC Studios
Hosted by Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich
Reported by Andrea Seabrook

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Overview

This episode explores the ambitious effort to save the endangered whooping crane from extinction. Through a mix of engaging narration and revealing interviews, Radiolab dives into the complex process of captive breeding, the quirks and heartbreaks of raising “rewilded” birds, and the larger implications when humans try to reverse the damage we’ve done to nature. The story takes listeners inside the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center, offering a behind-the-scenes look at the science, emotion, and existential questions embedded in modern conservation work.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

The Magical Setting of Crane Conservation

• Andrea Seabrook visits the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center, describing it as "like driving out of the beltway and into Jurassic Park" with lush old-growth trees and meadows, underscoring the return-to-nature mission. (02:14)
• The episode sets up the stakes: the center's attempt to “re-evolve” the endangered whooping crane, a species nearly driven extinct in the 1930s due to habitat destruction and hunting.

The Whooping Crane’s Dire Straits

• By the 1930s, only 16 whooping cranes remained in the wild, with merely four breeding females. (05:53)
• The scientists’ mission: bring these birds back from the edge, using a blend of biology, imitation, and human ingenuity.

The Surreal Process of Hand-Raising Cranes

• Eggs are gathered from captive pairs and incubated in large, carefully monitored hatcheries. (06:20)
• Newly hatched chicks first see a mother crane through plexiglass to encourage imprinting, but can't physically interact to prevent attachment issues and dependency (07:16).
• "We want to make sure that those young chicks know what they're supposed to be when they grow up." (Hatchery Technician, 08:16)

Crane Suit Parenting & Puppet Education

• Human caretakers wear white “crane suits” to blend in and use crane head puppets to teach chicks basic skills—eating, drinking, and foraging. (09:11–09:47)
• “They have to be taught everything.” (Sharon Perrigo, Technician, 09:28)
• This elaborate mimicry aims to prepare them for life as wild birds while preventing them from imprinting on humans.

Socialization & Migration Training

• In the wild, crane families are no larger than three; in captivity, trainers must teach chicks to accept others—a major behavioral leap. (10:24)
• Chicks are trained to follow ultra-light aircraft as “parental” guides during their first migration, learning routes never before flown by their species. (11:10–11:40)
• “That’s very exciting...You get all choked up.” (Sharon Perrigo, 11:40)

Successes and Lingering Mysteries

• The population rebounds from 16 to about 500 birds, marking a significant conservation victory. (12:56)
• Radiolab highlights the emotional impact and sense of accomplishment among staff and scientists.

The Heartbreaking Reproductive Failure

• Despite success in population numbers, a core problem remains: captive-raised cranes often abandon their eggs in the wild, leading to nest failure. (13:44–14:16)
• Theories include black fly infestations (14:35); insufficient food (15:23); or most compellingly, some unknown result of “funky” human-led rearing. (15:48)
• “They’re raised by animal caretakers in these funky costumes. They're in a very small pen that has a stuffed swan. This is not normal...for a crane.” (John French, 16:03)

Existential and Moral Reflection

• Andrea expresses growing ambivalence about the project. Is it right to “recreate” nature like this? Can these human-dependent cranes ever lead truly wild lives? (19:49)
• The cost is immense: each crane represents roughly a $100,000 investment. (17:33)
• Nevertheless, the work feels important and urgent to the scientists.
  • “Well, it’s the right thing to do and...well, what else are you going to do?...We’re not going to give up. We're gonna find a way to make it work a little better and then go have a couple beers.” (John French, 19:31)

Redefining Success in Conservation

• Jad raises the provocative question: What if the “rewilded” cranes never become fully independent? Is a new, human-dependent species still worth saving? (20:18)
• Robert finds this notion “sad,” while Andrea acknowledges her own uncertainty.
• The project’s future remains unresolved, perhaps requiring "dozens and dozens of years" to know if the cranes will adapt and reproduce naturally in the wild. (20:56, 21:05)

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Notable Quotes and Memorable Moments

• On the emotional confusion:
  • Robert Krulwich: "Does like a bad feel good story." (01:52)
  • Andrea Seabrook: "I came out of it really ambivalent, actually, which is totally counter my type." (19:49)
• On the extraordinary process:
  • Jad Abumrad: "These birds were hatched in an incubator, cuddled by stuffed swans, raised by humans in bird costumes, then taught to eat and drink by puppets. Now they're flying behind an ultralight plane on a migration route that never existed in nature." (12:35)
• On conservation’s persistence:
  • John French: "Well, it’s the right thing to do and...well, what else are you going to do?...We’re not going to give up." (19:31)
• On scientific uncertainty:
  • Andrea Seabrook: “So what exactly in that upbringing do you suspect might be the thing that is causing problems later…”
    John French: “Yeah. The real answer is I have no idea.” (16:31–16:36)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 02:14 – Arrival and vivid description of Patuxent Wildlife Research Center
• 05:53 – The brink of extinction: 16 cranes left in the wild
• 06:20–10:00 – Egg harvesting, hatching, and “crane suit” parenting
• 11:10–11:40 – Teaching migration using ultralight aircraft
• 12:56 – Population rebounds to 500 birds
• 13:44–16:19 – The mystery of egg abandonment and discussion of possible causes
• 17:33 – The monetary cost per bird
• 19:31 – The moral case for persevering in conservation, despite uncertainty
• 20:18 – The question of whether an “assisted” species is a valid endpoint

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Conclusion

“Raising Crane” offers a thought-provoking look at the complexity, success, and heartbreak of conservation science when humans attempt to fix what they changed. Balancing hope and doubt, Radiolab leaves listeners pondering whether the human effort has created new kinds of nature and what, ultimately, is the goal of conservation: restoration, recreation, or something entirely new?

Transcript

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[Jad Abumrad]

Wait, you're listening.

[Andrea Seabrook]

Okay. All right.

[Robert Krulwich]

Okay.

[Jad Abumrad]

All right.

[Narrator/Advertiser]

You're listening to Radiolab Radio Lab shorts.

[Greg Fitzpatrick]

From WNYC.

[Andrea Seabrook]

And npr.

[Jad Abumrad]

Hey, I'm Jad Abumrad.

[Robert Krulwich]

I'm Robert Kwilwich.

[Jad Abumrad]

This is Radiolab, the podcast. And today on the podcast, sort of kind of following in the footsteps of our inheritance show, we have. It's a feel good story that you may not know how to feel about.

[Robert Krulwich]

Does like a bad feel good story.

[Jad Abumrad]

It's.

[Andrea Seabrook]

I don't know.

[Robert Krulwich]

Okay. I'm willing to be confused in my feelings if that's what it's gonna take.

[Andrea Seabrook]

Yes.

[Jad Abumrad]

Let me get things rolling and introduce reporter Andrea Seabrook.

[Andrea Seabrook]

Hello.

[Jad Abumrad]

Hey, how's it going? She'll be telling us this next story. Good.

[Andrea Seabrook]

How are you?

[Jad Abumrad]

I'm excited to hear what. What it is you've discovered on your adventures.

[Andrea Seabrook]

I have discovered many things, young grasshopper.

[Jad Abumrad]

I'm ready.

[Andrea Seabrook]

Okay, so. So I went to this place, which I sort of knew existed, but I thought it was just like a little place north of Department of Interior, U.S. geological Survey, Patuxent Wildlife Research Center. There's a guardhouse. You drive into this place and it's like driving. Seriously, it's like driving out of the beltway and into Jurassic Park. They're just tall old growth trees. It's suddenly sort of lush and Meadows and verdant. It's like a hidden magical forest. It really gives you a sense of what this place must have been like before we came in and sort of asphalted everything.

[Jad Abumrad]

Now, just to set things up a bit.

[Robert Krulwich]

Okay.

[Jad Abumrad]

Scientists in this place are basically trying to go backwards. They're trying to essentially re evolve a species of bird that has lost its history.

[Robert Krulwich]

Which bird is that?

[Andrea Seabrook]

Whooping cranes.

[Jad Abumrad]

Whooping cranes? Yes.

[Andrea Seabrook]

Whooping cranes.

[Robert Krulwich]

Oh, yeah, I know about that.

[Andrea Seabrook]

Yeah.

[Jad Abumrad]

This place has been about a lot. There have been movies made about it. It's sort of the famous example of conservation. But when Andrea went to check it out, she discovered this mystery or this question that I never knew about that's right at the center of what these scientists are doing.

[Andrea Seabrook]

So I met this guy.

[John French]

Hello, Andrea.

[Andrea Seabrook]

Yes, hi. Named John French.

[John French]

Come on in.

[Andrea Seabrook]

He's got kind of a walrus like mustache and straw hat. I don't know if that tells you anything else about him, but yeah, it.

[Jad Abumrad]

Does paint a picture.

[John French]

I think we need to get you a little badge here.

[Andrea Seabrook]

This guy has been working with these cranes for like three decades.

[John French]

Well, we're here at the whooping crane.

[Andrea Seabrook]

Observatory and the first thing he does is take me to a duck blind.

[Jad Abumrad]

What's a duck blind?

[Andrea Seabrook]

It's like a tiny little house up on stilts. It's raised off the ground. We're walking up steps, steep steps, almost like a ladder. And you get inside this tiny little place with shutters that they can carefully and quietly open and then look down on the whooping crane pens. These birds. Oh, my goodness gracious.

[John French]

So this crane right in the corner of the pen there is the male. The female is sitting on a nest over there.

[Andrea Seabrook]

They're unbelievably beautiful and tall. These are huge, 3, 4ft tall with fluffy downy white bodies perched on top of these two long legs.

[John French]

Come on, buddy, stretch your wings here for us. Their wing spread is about eight, sometimes nine feet.

[Andrea Seabrook]

And then from the front of the body, this almost swan like neck curves and rises up to a head that it's white all the way up and it's got this bright blaze of red across the top of the head.

[John French]

The red cap that's actually bare skin. And that skin, when they come into breeding condition, the thing swells up, fills with blood, gets brighter.

[Andrea Seabrook]

I have never in my life seen anything like this. And here's why. By the 1930s, humans had destroyed enough of their territory and in fact, just like shot and eaten enough cranes that there were, they believe, 16 left in.

[Jad Abumrad]

The wild 1 6.

[Andrea Seabrook]

1 6.

[Jad Abumrad]

Wow.

[Andrea Seabrook]

And you know how many breeding females were in that population? 4.

[Jad Abumrad]

So they were right on the brink. They were right on the brink of the brink.

[Andrea Seabrook]

At that point, most biologists sort of say it's extinct.

[Robert Krulwich]

Well, if you're that close to the end, then how do you bring an animal back from something like that?

[Andrea Seabrook]

Here's what they do. In one building, they have two cranes who just lay a bunch of eggs.

[John French]

We can get, you know, three, four, five, sometimes even six or seven eggs from a single pair.

[Andrea Seabrook]

And the scientists gather those eggs, walking.

[Hatchery Technician]

Into the hatchery now, and they put.

[Andrea Seabrook]

Them in these giant incubators.

[Hatchery Technician]

You can see the trays of eggs. They tilt back and forth to allow.

[Andrea Seabrook]

The eggs to rotate when they are about to hatch. And they can tell because they start hearing these little, like, you know, sounds like knock, knock.

[Hatchery Technician]

A little hole appears. We take it across the room into the hatch. A bator. We'll walk in there next.

[Andrea Seabrook]

They take these eggs, put them in a room. Okay. And these eggs hatch, and the baby comes out. And it thinks, who's my mother? And then one of the walls of this room is plexiglass.

[Hatchery Technician]

And on the other side of the wall is an adult whooping crane.

[Jad Abumrad]

Like a mother whooping crane?

[Hatchery Technician]

Yeah, we call this an imprint model.

[Andrea Seabrook]

And so the baby can see a mother on the other side of the plexiglass. And in fact, the whooping crane on the other side of the plexiglas will make these sounds, these sort of sounds that say, come here, baby, you know, cute baby. And so the baby hears this sound and runs towards that sound, and, you know, bonk. Runs into the plexiglass because of course, that is there.

[Jad Abumrad]

Oh, so they're not letting the baby get to the mom?

[Andrea Seabrook]

Nope.

[Jad Abumrad]

Why not?

[Andrea Seabrook]

Because they don't have enough captive cranes to raise the number of eggs that they produce. And if a baby crane were to imprint on a mother crane that were going to stay, then it wouldn't migrate. They don't want the baby chick to inherit the traits that that mom has now that it's been raised by humans.

[Jad Abumrad]

But they still somehow need the baby to see what a mom looks like.

[Andrea Seabrook]

Yes.

[Hatchery Technician]

We want to make sure that those young chicks know what they're supposed to be when they grow up.

[Andrea Seabrook]

So. So the. So the chick hears that sound. Bonk. So he looks around its pen, and in the corner is a fake whooping crane that the scientists have put there.

[Hatchery Technician]

We use stuffed carcasses from mute swans.

[Andrea Seabrook]

But they put a whooping Crane head on the top.

[Jad Abumrad]

That's kind of grim.

[Andrea Seabrook]

It's totally weird. And the way they've taxidermied these whooping cranes is to have the wings, kind.

[Hatchery Technician]

Of the wings out a little bit so the chicks can snuggle up under there and kind of get brooded. We have a heat lamp that is directed down so it's warmer in there.

[Andrea Seabrook]

So the chick snuzzles up next to his fake mom. And the very next thing that happens is the humans walk into this environment.

[Sharon Perrigo]

I'm Sharon Perrigo, and I'm a technician.

[Andrea Seabrook]

Here wearing these big giant crane suits.

[Sharon Perrigo]

Big white costume, and it's a big.

[Andrea Seabrook]

Is it made of a sheet?

[Sharon Perrigo]

Just white fabric. We try to use that to conceal the human form.

[Andrea Seabrook]

And here's a key part. They hold a crane puppet head in one of their hands.

[Sharon Perrigo]

We use a puppet to point at things. Like, the adults would point out food on the ground or guide them and walk with them. I mean, they have to be taught everything.

[Andrea Seabrook]

How to eat, how to swallow water.

[Jad Abumrad]

They have to be taught how to drink.

[Andrea Seabrook]

She showed me how. She takes the puppet and dips it into water and then tips the head back.

[Sharon Perrigo]

The parents teach them how to do that. So we have to use the puppets instead.

[Andrea Seabrook]

And in these giant bird suits and with the puppet heads, they lead each little chick outside for the first time.

[Sharon Perrigo]

They're very curious, and they get very excited about going on walks and seeing butterflies and looking at bugs and see a pond for the first time and, you know, look at the frogs and try to catch the fish. And that's the fun part, to see them act like cranes.

[Andrea Seabrook]

And then they have to teach them something else that's really important but completely unnatural.

[John French]

In the wild, a whooping crane pair lays usually two eggs.

[Andrea Seabrook]

One or both will hatch. And if two hatch, one of the babies will be stronger than the other, and the mother will start to ignore the weaker one, and that one will die.

[John French]

One of those chicks dies.

[Andrea Seabrook]

The family is never more than three in the wild, really. But these scientists, they raise a whole flock of them at once.

[Sharon Perrigo]

And often the first time we walk two chicks together, they fight. There's a little bit of aggression.

[Andrea Seabrook]

Pack and run.

[Jad Abumrad]

Oh, because I guess if you're a baby, you've evolved instincts to mistrust the.

[Andrea Seabrook]

Other babies, at least in the beginning of your life. And so the trainers have to teach these baby chicks to tolerate each other.

[John French]

We then gather them together in a. In a rather large group.

[Andrea Seabrook]

Then the scientists take them and put them on a track exactly Almost like a running track. And they teach the baby chicks to go around and around and around the track, chasing a little propeller plane.

[Jad Abumrad]

They chase a plane.

[Andrea Seabrook]

It's like a hang glider with a big fan on the back.

[John French]

And then they get imprinted on the aircraft and the costumed handler that's driving the aircraft. So they kind of think of this as mom or dad.

[Andrea Seabrook]

Right.

[John French]

And so when they learn to fly, they fly behind the ultralight aircraft.

[Sharon Perrigo]

That's very exciting. That's very. Oh, you get all choked up. You know, it's just. It's. We're doing. We've done what we're supposed to do, and they're doing what they're supposed to do, and it's very rewarding, and you get all choked up about it. And they're just beautiful. They really are.

[John French]

So they practice flying during the summer up in Wisconsin. They get stronger, their wings get bigger, they take longer and longer flights. And then when time for migration comes in late September or early October, the ultralight takes off, heads down toward Florida, and the birds follow them. So we fly them down there to a couple of refuges in western Florida on the Gulf coast, and then we release them there.

[Andrea Seabrook]

And once the cranes have taken that journey once, they never have to be shown it again. So they, like, get it, and they form breeding pairs.

[Jad Abumrad]

Wow.

[Andrea Seabrook]

Down in the wild.

[Jad Abumrad]

Now, just to break in, think about how crazy this is. These birds were hatched in an incubator cuddled by stuffed swans, raised by humans in bird costumes, then taught to eat and drink by puppets. Now they're flying behind an ultralight plane on a migration route that never existed in nature. And it seems to be working. There used to be 16 birds, now.

[John French]

About 500, give or take, depending on when we're counting, and all that kind of stuff.

[Sharon Perrigo]

Wow.

[Andrea Seabrook]

It's a huge accomplishment. It's a huge accomplishment for this program, for ecological biology and for humanity that we could even figure out how to do something like this. You know, there have been all these documentaries that show these unbelievable, inspiring pictures of this light plane followed by these baby cranes. And it's so beautiful. And it's like, oh, you know, humans are doing what they should do. There are people who care so much that we're finally putting all of this into, you know, getting these cranes back. And we're going to recover something.

[Jad Abumrad]

Yeah.

[Andrea Seabrook]

But here's what. Here's what happens next. French says that in most cases, the breeding pairs that are formed in the wild will lay eggs. They will sit on the eggs and do all the things that wild cranes are supposed to do. And then one day they. They get up and walk away without the baby, without the egg ever hatching.

[John French]

These birds seem to abandon their eggs before hatching for some reason. It's puzzling.

[Jad Abumrad]

They just leap.

[Andrea Seabrook]

They just. They just walk away. They just get up and walk away.

[John French]

Yeah. Right, right.

[Jad Abumrad]

That's why.

[John French]

Well, well, we have a couple theories. What, what we see.

[Andrea Seabrook]

John French says there are three big reasons it might be.

[John French]

One is that these birds are bothered by black flies.

[Andrea Seabrook]

Flies?

[John French]

Black flies?

[Andrea Seabrook]

Yeah, black flies. These are not house flies.

[John French]

They're not house flies. They're biting flies. They burrow down under the feathers and bite and take a little blood meal.

[Jad Abumrad]

These flies are infesting the places where they nest.

[Andrea Seabrook]

Yeah.

[John French]

We have pictures of just the head of a crane just completely covered with black flies. We have done some experimentation though, to try and figure out if that is a cause. And the data looks pretty good. Like, yeah, when you knock down the black fly populations, the, the nesting success seemed to go up a little bit. But last year the data were quite a bit less clear cut.

[Jad Abumrad]

So they're not sure if it's the flies.

[Andrea Seabrook]

Exactly. That's one idea. The second idea is that maybe they aren't getting enough to eat.

[John French]

Do they have enough food and the right kinds of food to get them through the incubation period? There's some kind of suggestive evidence that that might be a problem for them.

[Jad Abumrad]

So they might be leaving their nests because they're just starving?

[Andrea Seabrook]

Yeah, maybe because we've changed the landscape so much. But John French thinks the third possibility is really the most likely one.

[Jad Abumrad]

Which is what?

[John French]

The rather odd upbringing that these birds have in captivity.

[Andrea Seabrook]

He thinks they have so much baggage from such a screwy childhood.

[John French]

They're raised by animal caretakers in these funky costumes. They're in a very small pen that has a stuffed swan. This is not normal. A normal childhood for a crane.

[Jad Abumrad]

So he thinks it's something that they're doing or not doing?

[Andrea Seabrook]

Exactly. So what exactly in that upbringing do you suspect might be the thing that is causing problems later when they're trying to be.

[John French]

Yeah. The real answer is I have no idea.

[Andrea Seabrook]

So you don't even know what you're not teaching the chicks?

[John French]

Absolutely right.

[Andrea Seabrook]

Right. This is perhaps the most difficult problem. There are so many variables. It could be that the birds aren't being kept warm enough or they're being kept too warm. Maybe they didn't have a role model for how long they get parented and so they walk Away.

[Jad Abumrad]

Oh, so it could be a timing thing. Like a mother needs to say, you need to sit on your egg for six days, not five.

[Andrea Seabrook]

No, just don't walk away. Don't do that.

[Jad Abumrad]

But they always walk away.

[Andrea Seabrook]

Actually, no, there are two or three. After 11 years, there are two to three adult birds in the migratory flock.

[Jad Abumrad]

Who are hatched in the wild, who.

[Andrea Seabrook]

Were hatched in the wild from captive bred birds. The rest of them were born here that are in that flock.

[Jad Abumrad]

Now, does that mean that countless little babies have died because their mothers have abandoned them?

[Andrea Seabrook]

Yes.

[Jad Abumrad]

Oh, that's tragic.

[Andrea Seabrook]

And get this, every single one of those birds, once they release them and get them down there, is worth about $100,000. Really? Yeah.

[Jad Abumrad]

In terms of the money that's been put in for training and all that.

[Andrea Seabrook]

Yeah.

[Jad Abumrad]

Oh, my God.

[Robert Krulwich]

So not as a collectible, but in terms of investment.

[Jad Abumrad]

You are a sick man. No, no.

[Robert Krulwich]

If you're a rich, really rare animal like a crane, just being rare makes you valuable in some market or other.

[Andrea Seabrook]

In this case, it's sort of like your child is worth, you know, by the time they go to college, you've spent $900,000 on them. Well, by the time these birds go to college, their human parents have spent $100,000 on them. Yeah, but I hear something you're not thinking of and I haven't said.

[Robert Krulwich]

Okay.

[Andrea Seabrook]

And that is these are very long lived birds. They can live to be 40. And right now we're just seeing the first results of just the, you know, the success that they've had. And so now they're just getting to this part really in the story.

[Jad Abumrad]

I see. So the three birds, the three little babies who have hatched out there, put against a 40 year lifespan means, well, maybe in a few years they'll get better.

[Robert Krulwich]

How do we know we're having a real crisis as opposed to a learning curve crisis?

[Andrea Seabrook]

We don't.

[Jad Abumrad]

That's interesting.

[Andrea Seabrook]

He thinks, and you can hear it in his voice, he thinks they should have gotten better at it by now.

[John French]

Yeah. I mean, there's something more that we need to do to help that population become self sustaining.

[Andrea Seabrook]

There's something else wrong.

[Robert Krulwich]

So it feels to him in a very gut sort of way that they're not behaving quite right.

[Andrea Seabrook]

Yeah.

[Robert Krulwich]

Not because they haven't learned how. It's just they may never learn. Learn how. It may be something broken in them.

[Andrea Seabrook]

It really bothers him too. So given all of this, it just seemed. It's just massively complicated. Why do you, why are you why do we do it? Why, why do we humans do. Why are we doing this?

[John French]

Well, it's the right thing to do and. Well, what else are you going to do? I mean, we're not going to give up. We're gonna find a way to make it work a little better and then go have a couple beers.

[Andrea Seabrook]

I mean, I went into this thinking this is like the coolest thing ever and how noble. And I came out of it really ambivalent, actually, which is totally counter my type. It is an important undertaking for it itself. But re. Establishing a fully independent flock I think may be a goal that is, that is too, too hard.

[Jad Abumrad]

But what about a flock that's not fully independent? I mean, if you, if you abandon the usual idea of conservation, which is that you're trying to go back to the way things were before we screwed everything up, and you just say this is a new species and maybe they need humans as parents. That's just the way it's going to work.

[Robert Krulwich]

Yeah, I find that sad.

[Andrea Seabrook]

It's funny because in a sense, when they fail reproductively. You fail reproductively.

[John French]

Well, I don't know about that. Well, you know, reproductively, yeah, possibly. I still have a couple daughters and they're going to be there whether the cranes are there or not, I hope.

[Jad Abumrad]

But I guess with these cranes, whatever happens, we're not going to know for a while.

[John French]

Yeah, it's going to take a heck of a long time, so, you know, dozens and dozens of years.

[Andrea Seabrook]

Okay, let's get in the car, it's freezing out here.

[Jad Abumrad]

A very sincere thanks to Andrea Seabrook for lending us her amazing talents. Andrea spent more than a decade covering Congress for npr and she just left to start a new podcast which she kick started and is now kicking ass. I would encourage everyone listening to. Check it out. It'[e-mail] decodedc.com thanks also to Nadia Wilson for production help and to the folks at the Patuxent Wildlife Research center for being so generous with access.

[Robert Krulwich]

Thank you, Operation Migration people.

[Jad Abumrad]

Thank you, cranes.

[Greg Fitzpatrick]

Hey there. My name is Greg Fitzpatrick and I'm sitting next to a campfire under a canopy of stars deep in the heart of Texas. Radiolab is supported in part by the National Science foundation and by the Alfred P. Sloan foundation, enhancing public understanding of science and technology in the modern world. More information about [e-mail].

[Andrea Seabrook]

Thank you.