December 20, 2007 02:19 pm
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If you had looked up in the skies over Crossville last Thursday, you would have seen something very out of the ordinary that many Crossville residents have no idea occurs. If you did look up on Thursday, you may have witnessed a flock of endangered whooping cranes led by four ultra-light airplanes flying overhead. This unusual group is known as Operation Migration.
Operation Migration is a nonprofit organization that uses ultra-lights to teach the whooping cranes a 1,206 mile migratory route from Wisconsin to the Gulf of Mexico in hopes of reestablishing the population. The whooping crane is North America’s largest and most endangered bird.
Nika Cantrell, a biology student at the Cumberland branch of Roane State Community College, and a team of Roane State faculty organized a presentation on Thursday, Dec. 6, for Operation Migration’s co-founder and ultra-light pilot Joe Duff to come to Roane State to educate the community on the group’s work and goals. Operation Migration is special to Crossville because the city is directly in the path of Operation Migration’s annual route to the Gulf.
For more information, or to support Operation Migration’s mission, visit www.operationmigration.org.
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