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Migration methods

COMPILED BY NIMI KURIAN

PHOTO: AP

FOLLOW THE LEADER. Learning to migrate.

Bill Lishman and Joe Duff founded Operation Migration in 1994 as a non- profit charitable organisation. That was five years after Bill became the first human to fly with birds, and one year after the two artists, turned biologists, used ultra light aircraft to lead a small flock of Canada geese from Ontario, Canada to Virginia, U.S.

Like many birds, Whooping cranes learn their migration route by following their parents. But this knowledge is lost when the species is reduced and there are no longer any wild birds using the flyway. In the first five years of the programme, approximately 60 birds have been taught a migration route between Wisconsin and Florida. This is four times the number that existed in the early 1940s.

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