{"id":867411,"date":"2026-08-22T13:02:10","date_gmt":"2026-08-22T13:02:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/867411\/"},"modified":"2026-08-22T13:02:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-22T13:02:10","slug":"after-wildfire-threat-40-whooping-crane-chicks-hatch-in-wood-buffalo-national-park","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/867411\/","title":{"rendered":"After wildfire threat, 40 whooping crane chicks hatch in Wood Buffalo National Park"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Text<\/p>\n

Listen to this article<\/p>\n

Estimated 4 minutes<\/p>\n

The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology. Mispronunciations can occur. We are working with our partners to continually review and improve the results.<\/p>\n

About 40 whooping crane chicks have hatched in Wood Buffalo National Park following a still-burning wildfire that threatened their habitat and nesting grounds<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Parks Canada staff recently caught about 20 of the chicks and tagged them with bands and tracking devices. <\/p>\n

The season started off on a positive note, said Nicolas Comerford, an ecologist with Parks Canada. But conditions quickly changed. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe had a record number of nests this year, 119 nests were counted in May,\u201d Comerford said. \u201cOf course, since then, we actually saw the fire start in May while we were doing the surveys, and the fires grew over the summer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whooping cranes are an endangered species, with only about 550 found in the wild. <\/p>\n

Tense nesting season <\/p>\n

Comerford said the ongoing drought has also posed a threat to the birds, as it means lower water levels, leaving the nests more exposed to predators, and forcing them to travel further from their nests to find food, leaving their eggs and hatchlings at risk.<\/p>\n

He said Ernie Kuyt<\/a>, a leading biologist credited with saving whooping cranes from extinction, made an observation about the birds and how low water levels can impact their nesting season.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe identified this correlation that when there are low water levels, we tend to see lower productivity,\u201d Comerford said.<\/p>\n

Out of the 119 nests, Comerford said the 40 hatchlings represent a productivity of about 34 per cent. <\/p>\n

“That\u2019s a bit on the lower end,\u201d Comerford said. \u201cThe whooping crane breeding productivity is quite variable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Comerford said they had recorded productivity rates ranging from 25 per cent to 80 per cent over the years, and it mainly depends on the amount of water on the land during the season.<\/p>\n

This year\u2019s threat from wildfires didn\u2019t help \u2014 some nests were established far enough away that they weren\u2019t impacted at all, while others were later found abandoned or burned.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe drought is really the source of these issues,\u201d Comerford said.<\/p>\n

As part of his work, Comerford was part of the group who captured some of the birds for banding. He said they had to catch one of the chicks in less than 12 minutes, quickly put the band on and assess its health, before releasing it back.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re on a timer and you want to make sure that you\u2019re doing this job well, you\u2019re not hurting the animal,\u201d Comerford said.<\/p>\n

A bird with a special name <\/p>\n

Ronnie Schaefer, who lives in Fort Smith, spends a lot of time with the whooping cranes in the park. Over the years, he\u2019d often go out and monitor the nests with his wife Cindy, who died in 2025. <\/p>\n

\"A‘She would have laughed,’ Schaefer said of what his wife Cindy might say if she were to learn a whooping crane chick had been given the name ‘Chickie’ (her nickname) in her memory. (Submitted by Carla Ulrich)<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople know my commitment and my love of these birds, and my wife being out there with me doing that,\u201d Ronnie Schaefer said.<\/p>\n

Thanks to the couple\u2019s commitment to the endangered species, one of the juvenile cranes, who is working on preparing for a long migration south in mid-September, will carry the name “Chickie,” Cindy\u2019s nickname, throughout its life.<\/p>\n

Once he found out about the name, Schaefer said he thought it was \u201camazing\u201d.<\/p>\n

For Schaefer, he\u2019s eager to keep tabs on Chickie\u2019s progress as the cranes migrate south.<\/p>\n

\u201cI went to see the guys that did the banding of the bird, and shook their hands,\u201d Schaefer said.<\/p>\n

Now, people can report sightings of Chickie using the unique colour band (gray, yellow and blue).<\/p>\n

\u201cI was so happy that they did this in honour of [Cindy],\u201d Schaefer said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just love them to death for doing that for her.\u201d<\/p>\n

LISTEN | The Trailbreaker’s interview with Schaefer and Comerford:<\/p>\n

The Trailbreaker12:27A whooping crane chick with a special name<\/p>\n

After their nesting season was threatened by wildfire and drought, about 40 whooping crane chicks hatched in Wood Buffalo National Park this year. One of them has a very special name. Ronnie Schaefer has the story of why that chick got that name, and Nicolas Comerford with Parks Canada spoke with the CBC\u2019s Shannon Scott with details on the threats the whooping cranes faced this season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 4 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":867412,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[49,48,66,323],"class_list":["post-867411","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/867411","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=867411"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/867411\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/867412"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=867411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=867411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=867411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}