THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, March 16, 1996 TAG: 9603150066
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Larry Maddry
LENGTH: Medium: 100 lines
HEY, WANNA ADOPT a goose that has been taught to migrate from Canada by following an ultralight plane?
Then you need to get in touch with Dr. William Sladen of the Father Goose program where they have gone to extremes in fooling around with Mother Nature.
You don't know Father Goose?
Well, that's Bill Lishman, who led the first man-led migration of birds back in 1993.
That extraordinary project began with his collection of eggs from Canada geese. The hatchlings imprinted on Lishman - as he suspected they would - at birth. Baby birds tend to imprint on the first living thing they see after emerging from their shells - believing it to be a parent.
During the 1993 flight, the Canadian Father Goose, was followed by 18 of the geese who flapped doggedly behind and alongside a pair of 250-pound metal and fabric planes during a 420-mile flight from Ontario to Sladen's Environmental Studies headquarters at Airlie Center in Warrenton, Va.
That flight alone was remarkable. More astonishing was the return flight of the geese to Canada the following spring. Of 18 birds which survived the winter, 13 made the journey back to Canada on their own.
The Virginia connection with Father Goose was cinched about three years before that first man-led migration. Sladen, an honored research scientist, and one of the world's foremost experts on polar birds, is a professor emeritus at Johns Hopkins University. He met Lishman at a scientific conference.
``That's when I learned that Lishman was doing incredible pioneer work with imprinting,'' Sladen recalled. ``When I learned that geese were following his plane, I said: `For God's sakes, they'll fly anywhere. Why not take them on a migration?' ''
And in the next breath Sladen added: ``Welcome to Airlie. We have all you need in Virginia.''
It took three years for Lishman to acquire the necessary permits for the history-making flight of geese following a surrogate parent in an ultralight aircraft.
The flight - which included a 40-mile crossing of Lake Ontario (the first by an ultralight aircraft) - had a larger purpose.
Sladen belives that if it can be done with geese, it can also be done with other waterfowl such as the rare trumpeter swan and the endangered whooping crane.
Sladen says it may be possible to find safe migratory routes for such birds so that they return each year to a suitable habitat. The trumpeter swan - the largest North American waterfowl - was abundant in Virginia 180 years ago but now is confined to Canada and Alaska.
Since 1993, Lishman has led two other ultralight flights with geese. In 1994, 39 geese followed a pair of ultralights to Airlie, with 34 returning to Ontario in the spring.
The latest attempt was even more ambitious. Last fall, a flock of 29 Canada geese followed ultralight aircraft from Canada to Airlie, where they met a second flock of 31 geese raised from eggs at Airlie. The mixed flock was led by three ultralights to a habitat in South Carolina.
Many of those geese, banded and fitted with radio transmitters, were last seen near Hamlet, N.C., Sladen said. ``Lishman's birds are, we hope, headed for Canada and ours to Airlie,'' he explained.
Sladen, director of environmental studies at Airlie Center, works with a pair of biologists who are learning imprinting techniques so they can later apply them to endangered species.
They have obtained federal permits to keep goose eggs. Speakers direct the sound of a tape recording of an ultralight engine toward the eggs, to accustom the prenatal goslings to engine noises. And the biologists talk to the eggs.
``We condition them early, as is done in nature. When a mother goose incubates her eggs, there is a lot of communication between the mother and the eggs before they hatch,'' Sladen said. ``Before the eggs hatch, you can hear them peeping inside.''
Soon after hatching, the goslings are shown a small model of an ultralight. And, later, the real thing.
Operation Migration has already received major media attention around the world. And Sladen says his friend has done an autobiography which will be released this spring. A major motion picture dealing with the operation is also due this spring from Columbia Pictures.
If you'd like to donate to the project, supporters are welcome to ``adopt'' an egg or even a whole goose. For more information, write to Sladen at Airlie Center, 6809 Airlie Road, 22186; telephone (703) 341-3239. ILLUSTRATION: Color AP photo
Canada geese follow an ultralight plane on a flight from Ontario to
Dr. William Sladen's Environmental Studies headquarters in
Warrenton, Va.
Graphic
WANT TO GO?
Who: Free talk by Dr. William Sladen on the Father Goose program,
sponsored by the Virginia Beach chapter of the National Audubon
Society
When: 7:30 p.m. Monday
Where: Eastern Shore Chapel (parish hall), 2020 Laskin Road,
Virginia Beach by CNB