EDUCATION

Check out the U-Haul SuperGraphics® On Trucks and On The Web

Heading home one day, I spied an interesting truck heading to the big U-Haul location on Harry Hines near NW Hwy.  It had a huge picture of a Sandhill Crane along with this text: The mysterious  Mississippi Sandhill Crane belongs to the oldest existing species of bird on earth. Now only one  flock remains. What clues to the puzzle of these peculiar birds can be observed in the Wet Pine  Savanna of Southern Jackson County? Of course, I was hooked and went to the U-Haul website to find out more. (There’s  a SuperGraphic for every state and the goal is to present “carefully researched rare findings, little-known facts and  mysteries that exist throughout the United States and Canada.” Go to http://www.uhaul.com/supergraphics/default.aspx.) Here’s just a little presented on the website about this little known Sandhill Crane subspecies.

Fossils over six million years old were found in Nebraska, making the sandhill crane the oldest living species of bird in the  world. Ninety-nine percent of sandhill cranes are migratory. As for the three nonmigratory species, the Florida sandhills can  be seen across southern Georgia and northern and central Florida, and are doing fine. However, the Cuban and Mississippi  sandhill cranes are endangered. Cuban sandhills are restricted to the Isle of Pines. The future does not look bright for these  two subspecies. The Mississippi sandhill crane (grus canadensis pulla) was recognized as a separate subspecies in 1972  and in 1973 was placed on the endangered species list by the U.S. Fish and  Wildlife Service.

The Mississippi Sandhill Crane National Wildlife Refuge is located in the city of  Gautier, Miss. The refuge was established in 1974 and is one of nearly 500  national wildlife refuges administered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The  Gautier, Ocean Springs and Fontainebleau land units make up the refuge's  massive nesting range of 19,000 acres; about 12,500 acres can be used by  cranes. The refuge's main purpose is to provide protection and management  for the cranes, to protect and preserve the savanna and to provide  environmental education, interpretation and wildlife-oriented recreation for  refuge visitors. In January and February, people can call and arrange a free  excursion with a crane biologist who will take them out early Tuesday or Saturday mornings to an observation blind. These expeditions are offered only in those two months because they are the  coolest, and the birds are more likely to come out to visible feeding areas. Anybody up for a road trip next year?