| I was first introduced to ultralights back
in the late 70's by Mike Robertson of High Perspective at a field near
Claremont Ontario. During my "introduction" to the sport
I met a great many people including two Bill Lishman and Joe Duff.
Bill was "different" as he was
a "sculptor in metal" while Joe was a professional
photographer working out of Toronto. Bill was flying a highly modified
"Easy Riser" while Joe was flying the "MX" line of
aircraft.
In 1993, Joe joined forces with
Bill to work with migratory birds. Successfully leading a flock of
Canada geese 400 miles to Virginia using ultralight airplanes. Their
experiment was documented by
ABC's 20/20 . The migration was repeated in 1994 leading a larger
flock of geese over 800 miles to South Carolina.
The purpose of these flights was to lay
the groundwork for the re-establishment of migratory bird routes for
endangered species such as the Whooping crane. Currently there is only 1
flock of 183 birds left in the world! Joe and Bill are using the
experience gained from raising and leading the geese, to aid
conservationists in establishing another flock.
According to Joe "one way of doing
this is to raise the birds in captivity, become their parents, and teach
them to fly a new migration route." "in order to do that we
are currently working with a "non endangered bird called the
Sandhill crane" "with plans to establish a secondary
"Whooping crane
flock in an area of Wisconsin and then "migrate" them
down to Florida." "with the goal being to raise a total of 25
breeding pairs." "to get that flock in place, as a self
sustaining flock will probably take about 15 years."
Currently Operation Migration is looking
for corporate sponsorship and private donations - if you would like to
get involved contact:
http://operationmigration.durham.net/
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