Have you always been so connected with animals?

Yes, I suppose I was one of those kids who was born a little congenital scientist or some such thing. I was obsessively drawn to other living things– often to the exclusion of all other priorities. My parents were, if not supportive, at least indulgent to my obsessions. And bless their hearts! They just laid down a linoleum floor in my bedroom, and the rule was: any critter is OK, as long as it stays in the bedroom or outside, it must be well fed and clean, and absolutely no poisonous snakes inside the house! I rarely kept my animals in cages and almost all slept with me in the bed. The list was endless. Big, small, mammal, bird or reptile. I think at one point I had a small bobcat, a gray squirrel, and a seven foot boa constrictor, all living in perfect harmony.

Where was the Florida Turkey piece filmed?

My Life as a Turkey was filmed on a large family ranch in south-central Florida. My original project was conducted adjacent to a National Forest and Wilderness Area southwest of Tallahassee in northern Florida. The ecology in the area of north Florida is very dense, swampy and jungle-like. The Ranch location was, in many ways, a very similar oak hammock ecology with sandy scrub-oak ridges. The plants and animals were basically the same with a few exceptions, however there was open “savannah/prairie” like cattle land which was much more photo-friendly. The north Florida location would have been more of a continuous wall of green. The ranch also afforded better logistic accommodations for the crew, with complete privacy for the turkeys. All the wild animals filmed in the documentary were wild residents with the exception of one or two of the snakes that were obtained from a local snake “Wrangler”.

Did you ever find out who the person was that left the eggs and do you think they were all from the same clutch?

Yes, I knew the fellow who brought me the eggs. He was actually an employee on a very large quail hunting preserve. The eggs were from two separate nests, which allowed me to immediately make discriminations between the family groups according to size, coloration and variations in subtle markings. For example, the color of the legs were distinctive at the time of hatching. Even the eggs looked slightly different in color and speckling. Overall the two family groups were quite different in appearance. And yes, I did have the experience of encountering two of my adult hens when they had 10 week old poults of their own. It was an awkward encounter in the forest where the hens recognized me and were quite unafraid, but of course their poults had never seen a human, and like all wild turkeys, were horrified at my sight and flew in panic. The mother hens were obviously confused but of course had to quickly follow their brood. A lady living miles away had one of my hens living on her place. The hen was relatively tame, would bring her young poults into her yard and garden, but again, the young poults were intolerant of the woman’s company.

Do you think the birds and especially Sweet Pea, were more vulnerable to predation being raised by a human rather than a real turkey mom? Perhaps in the way of being too trusting?

I have been very concerned about this familiarization/ habituation issue that would cause an animal that knows me to somehow be at greater risk from predation or other humans. In the case of the turkeys, I quickly found that 20 million years as a prey species has honed their survival skills to a razors edge and my proximity was essentially inconsequential in the face of any predator. As for other humans, I found that the turkeys were in fact suspicious of other people even at a great distance and could in fact ,with their keen eyes, discriminate between me and anyone else from a quarter of a mile! I have found these powers of discrimination as evident and perhaps even keener in mule deer.

Did you have a sense that the males from your two clutches of eggs might be segregating at all (i.e. hanging out more with genetic relatives)? Did you notice any traits of the males that were socially dominant?

I think Lovett Williams, et al. established or suggested that sibling male wild turkeys tend to stay fraternal throughout their lives– certainly in the first couple of years. That has been my observation as well. However, I think these bonds are somewhat tenuous and involve constant minor conflict to insure the dominance of one particular male. Mature brothers will often display beside an actively breeding dominant gobbler without ever suggesting that they would try to participate in breeding activity. I have photographed this phenomenon many times while concealed in blinds with wild spring flocks. It was not until I lived with the gobbler flock that I raised, that the more subtle dynamics of the male fraternity became obvious. These brotherly hierarchies are generally well established prior to maturity and are formed on the basis of innate individual aggressiveness as well as superior size and strength. A dominant gobbler was probably a dominant poult. Gobblers of course, rarely live to a ripe old age, and so “lone older gobblers” quickly become the norm, but it would be interesting to know how sibling gobblers would preserve their fraternity over many years. And as you probably know, old males will on occasion abstain from all Spring breeding activity and conflict, living a quiet solitary life. I have also observed on several occasions a younger “apprentice” jake, form attachments to an older lone gobbler. I don’t think a fraternal group would ever allow this, but if jake and older gobbler have each lost their family group, I think there is a mutual need for companionship that allows some sort of bond to occur. Conjecture of course.

Were you shocked that “turkey boy” attacked you or was that normal behavior for a tom turkey? Was it a territorial issue? Do you think Turkey Boy was hurt over you leaving?

Hand raised male turkeys have a history of eventually becoming aggressive towards humans. I always thought it might be a possibility– but I was still surprised that my buddy– Turkey Boy– wanted to harm me! It was not so much a territorial issue as just an unfortunate “male thing”.

Turkey Boy and I actually resolved our differences after his breeding season ended. The film had to abbreviate our rather complex relationship for the sake of time. Eventually Turkey Boy left on his own and I never saw him again, and I address this in the book in some detail. So, it was me who was hurt over HIS leaving. After all these years I still miss them. This film is hard for me to watch.

What are the top 3 surprises in your studies?

Top three surprises? Getting the eggs of course was the biggest surprise but at the top of the list would be the overwhelming complexity of these creatures that I encountered. I was already somewhat of a casual authority on these birds– but I found so many interesting surprises. In particular, an extraordinary intelligence characterized by true problem solving reason, and a consciousness that was undeniable, at all times conspicuous, and for me, humbling. It should come as no surprise to any of us, considering what we now know about the universe– the closer you look into reality, whether the microcosm or the macrocosm– whether the particle accelerator or the Hubble telescope– things don’t become less complex– and not just more complex but– infinitely more complex. Even the familiar laws of physics break down and no longer apply and we find ourselves searching for new models and paradigms to explain nature. So too with the nature of living things. We need to see the world once again, with new eyes. The wild turkeys have taught me to never see the world the same way again. You look at any living thing closely enough and sooner or later you realize the complexity is beyond comprehension.

If you could teach the turkeys a human thing, what would you teach? If you were to ask them one turkey question, what would you ask?

Wow, I don’t know of one thing wild turkeys could learn from us that would be useful or helpful. Stay away from the road? I still of course believe wild turkeys to be in many ways, a vastly superior creature. (not entirely tongue-in-cheek). One question I could ask them? What must it be like to exist in a state of complete wakefulness? To be the definition of Sentient. That’s got to be, at the very least, some serious fun!

Why do you think that people always seem surprised that animals show intelligence, reason, use tools, show affection and emotions?

As far as humans finding it difficult to recognize a higher order of experience in other creatures — First, most people honestly don’t have the contact and are not having opportunities to pay attention. We are way to busy just trying to keep it together. The good news bad news answer is, we are also “evolving” out of a darker consciousness, in which humans assumed they were completely removed from the natural world and were entitled to have absolute dominion over it. Even now, we refer to the earth as possessed of our “natural resources”– implying that the natural world is merely the repository of all things consumable by “man”. Humans are, as an evolutionary species, defined in part by an element of aggressive arrogance– highly adaptive for a small creature trying to employ reason rather than overwhelming physical prowess. Because obviously, intellegence is a double edged sword that can turn on us as we become paralyzed by recognizing our conspicuous vulnerability. The old, “none of us is getting out of this alive!” phenomenon. However, is it possible that this arrogance, as seen in the light of our very recent and now overwhelming lack of vulnerability, can and has become, more of an evolutionary artifact? Has it now become mal-adaptive and merely a highly destructive form of ignorance? The good news is, it is possible for us all to become wakeful– pay attention. I think we simply must now become a creature that is truly characterized by reason and consciousness– and perhaps we had better hurry.

What has it been like to reimmerse yourself into human society? Life with the turkeys seems so fulfilling and spiritual, I imagine it would be so difficult to be a part of the human world.

In fact it was rather difficult to re-enter my old life and culture. Living with the turkeys was a very intense emotional experience and yes, as you say, spiritual. I had some difficulty, for a year or two, trying to reintegrate and attach significance to other things. Perhaps like a touch of “PTSD”. I also experienced something very similar when I finally had to leave the mountain after several months living alone with the bighorn sheep above timberline in Wyoming. Living in a wilderness environment for months or years, tones and heightens your awareness. All the associated physical stress also raises the level of intensity. In both cases, the thought of having to return to my “normal” life and just having to be boring old me again was a dreadful notion. Who was it? Byron or someone who said, “I love not man the less but, nature more”, well it’s sort of like that I suppose.

Do you keep in contact with friends and family while doing your studies (via phone or online)?

Not really, and I have a fundamental dislike of the things– don’t know why. When I conducted the turkey study in the 90s, cell phones were not around yet. On the bighorn sheep study, cell phones would not work in a remote wilderness at that time. There is no question that a cell phone will save your life on occasion in the back country. I do carry one now in remote places, but refuse to ever turn it on, except in an emergency. Wilderness is more of a romantic notion than a reality anyway, and a fragile notion at that, so when I have a chance to fulfill the illusion, I would never choose to interrupt, or worse destroy, a magic that is so hard to achieve!

In this re-enactment, was it necessary to have a new brood of poults imprint on you and was it necessary to relive the entire year-plus experience with its intense immersion? Did you find that the “actor” birds naturally assumed the roles of the 1991 birds, one clingy, some adventurous, and so on, and finally one who hung around long enough to emphatically chase you away? Did you find that re-enacting this experience allowed you to have somewhat more detachment the second time around, knowing how the course of the project would unfold? Was the experience much changed by the presence of the cameras and camera operators?

The American PBS version of the film tried to make it clear that this was a “reenactment”, as it says in the opening credits. In fact, the film was a genuine “recreation”– a complete replication of an experiment. It served as a vindication for me, in the sense that if an experiment cannot be replicated it is considered to be of no scientific merit. I of course, had no way of knowing if other young wild turkeys would behave as mine did. So, the simplified explanation is: After permitting was accomplished, the State of Florida trapped wild turkey hens, installed radio collars in Spring, robbed nests when they started laying ,and the backwoods savvy actor, Jeff Palmer incubated and began “imprinting” the eggs. (Hens, by the way, will nest a second time or even a third if they are unsuccessful on the first try.) My roll was strictly on-screen and off screen narration. The guy you see with the birds is always Jeff. They did in fact film for over a year in order to record all the development and life cycle. Wild turkey personalities vary wildly, so conveniently, there were similarities in the group that approximated a Sweet Pea and a Turkey Boy– and yes, poor Jeff got butt kicked by the Turkey Boy character. To my absolute amazement, this film crew– mostly legendary British cinematographer, Mark Smith– managed to actually recreate many events in the book that I considered impossible. He and Jeff were incredible! Jeff had to be with those poults, as I was, and my hat is off that they pulled this project off. I frankly was very pessimistic that this “recreation” was a possibility. I felt that I had been impossibly lucky in the first place and there was probably no way there luck would hold out as well. There were about a thousand things that could have gone wrong at any point along the way that would have killed the entire project. This was an heroic effort by Passion Pictures from London, PBS, BBC, and of course Jeff. And such lovely people– all. I will always be grateful.

The end of the film said you were now living with mule deer, how did you become involved with them?

Leslye and I live on an old historic ranch in Wyoming. We back up to the Wind River Mountains with unbounded wild lands surrounding us. The location is prehistoric winter range for mule deer (and so of course, mountain lions and other large predators), and our winter herd usually averages between 35 and 40 individuals. We have a number of year-round residents as well. I have been studying these deer and developing extraordinary relationships with them for over six years now. They have volunteered and chosen us, by the way. It is suggested that mule deer may have the largest brain of any deer in the world, as well as a number of other unique characteristics. They are in fact– profoundly intelligent, and capable of remarkable communication and have shown an overwhelming curiosity and willingness for human contact and interaction. We are multiple generations into this herd, they allow me to accompany them on excursions into the back country, and once again, I am being treated as just another, “perhaps rather odd”, member of the family. A book is in the works.

Are you filming your life with the bighorns?

There has been talk about a “bighorn” film. However, unlike the turkey documentary, it is a very complex story involving a large ecosystem with issues that are being studied and explored by a small army of gifted researchers. It has been suggested that a 50 minute documentary would not do justice to such a broad study. There have been rumblings about a full length feature film that could treat the subject matter more appropriately.

I personally think it would make a profoundly beautiful and timely film, with many compelling elements in a drop-dead-gorgeous place on the planet.

Are you going to have some turkey this Thanksgiving?

Well, I must say I would be a hypocrite if I disapproved of people eating turkey at Thanksgiving or any other time, as I was born into a hardcore turkey hunting family and culture. But, it’s probably obvious at this point, that I could never kill a wild turkey. And also, I must say I’m very conflicted and largely disapproving of the commercial meat industry in general. But, I live in Wyoming– defined in part by the livestock industry, and many people here don’t always rely on other people to kill their animals for them. So, as you can see, I’m skirting around the question. We are joining some friends for Thanksgiving and I’m guessing we’ll have elk tenderloin. I’ll rely heavily on the greens and cornbread!

Photo © David Allen
Photo © Joe Hutto

My Life as a Turkey recounts Joe Hutto’s experience raising a group of wild turkey hatchlings to adulthood; however, the actual footage in the film was of wildlife photographer and actor Jeff Palmer. Sixteen turkey chicks were imprinted on Palmer, and his time with them was carefully documented by filmmaker David Allen. In this audio slideshow, Palmer discusses reenacting Joe Hutto’s imprinting experiment, his involvement with the production, and being mom to his own rafter of turkeys.

After a local farmer left a bowl of eggs on Joe Hutto’s front porch, his life was forever changed. Hutto, possessing a broad background in the natural sciences and an interest in imprinting young animals, incubated the eggs and waited for them to hatch. As the chicks emerged from their shells, they locked eyes with an unusual but dedicated mother. One man’s remarkable experience of raising a group of wild turkey hatchlings to adulthood. Buy the DVD. This film premiered on November 16, 2011. (Video limited to U.S. & Territories.)

When naturalist Joe Hutto became “mother” to a flock of wild turkeys, it gave him a unique opportunity to immerse himself in their lives and see the world through their eyes. He was not a stranger intruding, but rather the heart of the flock. He was able to do this by taking advantage of a biological phenomenon known as “imprinting.”

Imprinting refers to a critical period of time early in an animal’s life when it forms attachments and develops a concept of its own identity. Birds and mammals are born with a pre-programmed drive to imprint onto their mother. Imprinting provides animals with information about who they are and determines who they will find attractive when they reach adulthood.

Imprinting has been used by mankind for centuries in domesticating animals and poultry. In Rome, in the first century B.C., agriculturalist Lucius Moderatus Columella wrote a treatise on agrarian practices and suggested that “anyone wishing to establish a place for rearing ducks should collect wildfowl eggs in the marches and set them under farmyard hens, for when they are reared in this way they lay aside their wild nature.” For centuries in rural China, rice farmers have imprinted newly hatched ducklings to a special stick, which they then use to bring the ducks out to their rice paddies to control the snail population.

But, it was not until the early 1900s that any scientific studies were done of the phenomenon. Austrian naturalist Konrad Lorenz became the first to codify and establish the science behind the imprinting process.

Lorenz found that when young birds came out of their eggs they would become attached to the first moving object they encountered. In most cases in the wild, that would be their mother. But Lorenz replaced himself as the object of their affection. And it wasn’t just him that the young birds would attach to as a mother substitute. They would just as easily attach to inanimate objects and oddities, such as a pair of gumboots, a white ball and even an electric train – if it was presented at the right time. The hatchlings have been prepared by natural selection to form an immediate strong social bond.

Lorenz’s work with geese and ducks provided concrete evidence that there are critical sensitive periods in life where certain types of learning can take place. And, once that learning is ‘fixed,’ it is the least likely to be forgotten or unlearned. Lorenz’s geese responded to him as a parent, following him about everywhere, and when they became adults, courted him in preference to other geese.

Researchers building on Lorenz’s work have identified other such unique windows of opportunity for both animals and people to acquire knowledge. For birds like ducks, geese and turkeys, that hatch and begin walking around, the need to follow something for their own safety is vital to their early survival, so imprinting happens in the first few hours and days.

Joe Hutto used this sensitive time period to become the parent to his flock. When the poults are born, the first thing they do is look about for a parent to bond to. They are attracted to movement, sound and smell. Joe used all three of these to reinforce the poults attachment to him as their mother. While they were incubating, he spoke to them, in both “turkey” and English, to get them used to the sound of his voice. When the poults hatched, he was positioned to be the first thing they would see. When the first poult emerged, he made his turkey sound and, as Joe recounts, the poult turned its head, its eyes met Joe’s and “something very unambiguous happened in that moment.” A connection had been made.

The new hatchling made his way over to Joe and huddled up against his face. Over the next few hours this was repeated with all the baby birds. And, the attachment was reinforced as he spent 24/7 tending them as a parent would. They came to associate the sight, sound and smell of him as their mother.

But the biological imperative that drives imprinting can have its negative side. Conservationists and naturalists have become sensitive to the damage imprinting can cause in young animals who attach to people or objects instead of a parent. Birds that imprint on human ‘parents’ prefer their company to that of their own species. They are unlikely to ever return to the wild or socialize appropriately with their own kind.

This has led to the development of some novel approaches in captive breeding programs. In California and Arizona, at the Condor Recovery Project, eggs are incubated and the chicks are raised by caretakers using a hand puppet shaped like a condor head; while researchers at China’s Wolong Panda reserve take it a step further – dressing in full, furry panda suits whenever they have to interact with the animals, believing that the cubs must live devoid of all human contact if they are to have any chance of survival.

But the implications for imprinting extend far beyond geese and pandas. Researchers since Lorenz’s time have found that imprinting is a component in all animal and human interaction, and can be a more plastic and forgiving mechanism than was originally thought. It plays a role in determining who we love and who we live with – not just how a man can become mama to a turkey.

Photo © David Allen

Turkey mom Joe Hutto joins his three-month-old turkeys on a grasshopper hunt.

“Had I known what was in store—the difficult nature of the study and the time I was about to invest—I would have been hard pressed to justify such an intense involvement. But, fortunately, I naively allowed myself to blunder into a two-year commitment that was at once exhausting, often overwhelming, enlightening, and one of the most inspiring and satisfying experiences of my life.”

–Joe Hutto, Illumination in the Flatwoods

 
 
After a local farmer left a bowl of eggs on Joe Hutto’s front porch, his life was forever changed. Hutto, possessing a broad background in the natural sciences and an interest in imprinting young animals, incubated the eggs and waited for them to hatch. As the chicks emerged from their shells, they locked eyes with an unusual but dedicated mother.

Deep in the wilds of Florida’s Flatlands, Hutto spent each day living as a turkey mother, taking on the full-time job of raising sixteen turkey chicks. Hutto dutifully cared for his family around the clock, roosting with them, taking them foraging, and immersing himself in their world. In the process, they revealed their charming curiosity and surprising intellect. There was little he could teach them that they did not already know, but he showed them the lay of the land and protected them from the dangers of the forest as best he could. In return, they taught him how to see the world through their eyes.

Based on his true story, My Life as a Turkey chronicles Hutto’s remarkable and moving experience of raising a group of wild turkey hatchlings to adulthood. My Life as a Turkey premiered Wednesday, November 16, 2011.

As a young boy, Canadian sculptor William Lishman wanted to be a military pilot. Vision problems grounded that dream, but he did eventually take up flying ultralight aircraft. And in 1988, he made ornithological and aviation history by leading a flock of 12 Canada geese that had imprinted on him; bonding to his plane as if it was a mother goose. Then, in 1994, he and partner Joseph Duff together led the first aircraft migration of 18 geese from Ontario to Virginia — a trip that later became the basis for the Hollywood film Fly Away Home.

Today, the two men help lead Operation Migration, a nonprofit organization that conducts migration studies and — as NATURE’s Flight School shows — is using ultralight aircraft to help restore migrating populations of whooping cranes to Florida. It’s a tricky business: In order to survive in the wild, cranes can not become imprinted on people, yet they must learn to follow an aircraft. piloted by a human.

NATURE caught up with Duff in Canada, as the group was tracking the Spring 2004 return of more than a dozen hand-reared whooping cranes it had led to Florida in late 2003.

How’s the migration going?

It’s looking very good so far. We’ve got birds moving north, with some in Wisconsin, Indiana, and Illinois. It’s a lot of work keeping track of them all, but we’re happy (for an update, see the Operation Migration Web site.

How did you get involved in this?

Well, I’m a commercial photographer, and back in 1988 my friend Bill Lishman met a guy on a local lake here who was teaching geese to follow his boat, using the boat as a photography platform. Bill wondered if you could get the geese to follow an ultralight too. It took him a while to figure it out, but he finally did it. Later, we realized that this could be useful for endangered species. We’ve been pushing the idea ever since. We did our first crane study with sandhills in 1998.

How do you make sure that the cranes don’t imprint on you?

We work hard to minimize human contact and give the bird as natural an experience as possible. Only people in costumes get near the birds, which are raised in very isolated areas. So by the time they arrive in Florida they have never seen an uncostumed human. It’s a very strict protocol and very difficult to do — it complicates everything.

Many other kinds of cranes around the world besides whooping cranes are endangered. Is there any talk of using the aircraft approach with any of these other cranes?

There is a discussion using powered hang gliders with Siberian cranes (in Asia). That’s because all cranes are soaring birds — they don’t flap very often. Our birds have to learn to follow the eddies off the wing, and you can only do that when the air is calm. Once midday comes, it is far too bumpy for them. But with a hang glider, you can soar on the thermals, just like the birds do. But it would be very difficult. The Siberian crane’s migration route is very long, and hasn’t even been identified yet.

What’s the next landmark for the flock you are working to establish in Florida?

One thing is that we’re only in our third year so our birds haven’t started breeding yet. They start to pair bond at around three years old and may mate in their fifth year. So we’re waiting to see what is going to happen and hoping for the best.

What are some of the problems you face in keeping your flock safe?

Well, we’re always scrambling to raise funds. But beside that maybe the worst thing that can happen is that people start feeding the birds. Then they start ending up in the McDonald’s parking lot, or not migrating. So we always preach that people should just leave them alone. After all these are wild birds that were once known as the “white ghost of the wetlands.” They deserve to be left in peace.

Rural children have who raised ducks or geese have long known about “imprinting” — or socially bonding to a parent figure. They learned that if they were the first moving object seen by newborn chicks, the young birds would soon follow them around devotedly. Many a delighted young farmer has paraded around the garden followed by “their” waddling brood.

But it wasn’t until the 1930s that a young Austrian scientist named Konrad Zacharias Lorenz formally documented the imprinting process — and gave it its name. Lorenz, who died in 1989 at the age of 86, ultimately won a Nobel Prize for his work.

Lorenz became interested in birds and bird behavior as a child. At one point, he recalled in an autobiography, “I yearned to become a wild goose and, on realizing that this was impossible, I desperately wanted to have one and, when this also proved impossible, I settled for having domestic ducks.” Soon, a neighbor gave him a one-day old duckling, which immediately began to follow Lorenz around, “to my intense joy.”

In college, Lorenz studied medicine and anatomy, but continued to keep and study birds and other animals. Then, in 1935, he published one of his most famous studies. In it, he showed that young ducks and geese could be “imprinted” on virtually anything — from people to colored balls — during their first days of life. Such “programming” probably evolved to help young birds recognize and stick close to their parents for safety.

Soon, university officials had set up a special institute where Lorenz and several other scientists could study animal behavior full time. But the work was interrupted by World War II. Lorenz became a military doctor, and was eventually captured by the Russian Army. After years as a prisoner, he returned to Austria in 1948, and was offered funds to resume his work. “We had money to support our animals, no salaries but plenty of enthusiasm and enough to eat,” he recalled. He eventually moved to Germany, where he was offered the chance to create a small research station.

For the next several decades, Lorenz helped pioneer the study of animal behavior, or “ethology.” He wrote several popular books, and soon became known to the public as “the man who walked with geese.” Magazines featured pictures of Lorenz leading, and even swimming with, his imprinted flocks. In 1973 Lorenz, together with two other scientists, was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology.

Today, Lorenz’s theory of imprinting is still being fine-tuned by scientists. Among other things, they’ve found that the imprinting window may not be as narrow as once thought. But, in general, Lorenz’s work has stood the test of time. And, as NATURE’s Flight School illustrates, an understanding of imprinting has important implications for conservation.

In the show, for instance, viewers meet Chewy, a gangly young sandhill crane whose parents were killed by a coyote. As a result, he was raised by people, and is imprinted on a woman named Mia. While Mia’s a great mom, Chewy never learned to behave as a normal, well-adjusted crane. As a result, he doesn’t know how to migrate and there’s little chance he’ll ever mate.

For biologists trying to raise and reintroduce endangered birds such as whooping cranes back into the wild, such imprinting gone awry would be a disaster. Conservationists thus go to great lengths to prevent newborn whoopers from imprinting on people. They wear crane costumes whenever they are around the birds, use puppets to feed the chicks, and raise the birds in isolated areas away from people.

So far, the strategy seems to work pretty well. And, eventually, researchers hope that there will be plenty of wild cranes to raise their own young — and biologists won’t have to worry about the behavioral quirk that Konrad Lorenz studied so long ago.