DaimlerChrysler Teams with Wildlife Groups To Aid Recovery of Endangered Whooping Cranes

    AUBURN HILLS, Mich., July 2 DaimlerChrysler Corporation
today joined with U.S. Interior Secretary Gale Norton, the National Fish and
Wildlife Foundation and other conservation organizations to mark a major
milestone in the effort to rescue the whooping crane from the list of
endangered species.
    DaimlerChrysler is contributing to the program to re-establish a
population of migrating whooping cranes in the eastern United States.  The
whooping crane is the tallest bird in North America, standing five-and-a-half
feet tall, and is also one of the world's rarest birds.
    "Americans love the outdoors and cherish their environmental heritage.
And our Dodge, Jeep(R) and Chrysler products are an integral part of our
customers' active lifestyle," said Bernard I. Robertson, Senior Vice President
- Engineering Technologies & Regulatory Affairs and General Manager - Truck
Operations at DaimlerChrysler.
    "So it is natural that we would want to join the effort to save these
magnificent birds for future generations of Americans to admire and enjoy."
    Today's ceremony at the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center in Laurel,
Maryland, marked successful rearing of 10 whooping crane chicks from eggs.
They will next be transferred to the Necedah National Wildlife Refuge in
Wisconsin where they will continue to mature.  At the same time, a team of
wildlife recovery experts will condition the young birds to follow ultralight
aircraft.
    In late fall of this year, the birds will be led by ultralight aircraft on
their migratory route to their winter nesting grounds in the Chassahowitzka
National Wildlife Refuge on the Gulf Coast of Florida.
    DaimlerChrysler will provide chase vehicles for the ground team
accompanying the birds on their 1,250 mile migratory route.  The vehicles will
include a minivan to accommodate the biologists, veterinarians and their gear
and two four-wheel drive vehicles to provide off-road capability should the
need arise to locate the birds in remote areas.
    The entire process was successfully tested last year, using a population
of sandhill cranes.  Ten of the eleven sandhill cranes returned on their own
to their nesting ground in Wisconsin after a similar migration with ultralight
aircraft, giving further hopes for a successful whooping crane experiment.
    The birds faced extinction just 60 years ago when only 15 wild whooping
cranes remained in the United States, and all eastern migratory whooping
cranes had been eliminated.  Today there are 384 whooping cranes in North
America -- 174 in the only existing migratory flock which breeds in Canada and
winters in Texas, 86 non-migratory birds in central Florida, 120 in captivity
and two in the Rocky Mountains.
    The program to establish a second migrating population of whooping cranes
would make the birds less vulnerable to extinction should disease or a natural
disaster destroy one of the existing populations.
    The effort to re-establish migratory and non-migratory populations of
whooping cranes in the eastern United States is a 10-year project including
several Federal and state agencies and private conservation organizations.