A daredevil flight to save rare birds

I watched this a few nights ago and it's still on my mind. Flying over mountainous dense forest with no hope of a safe landing while swerving to stop the birds from flying into the propeller was exciting. But what got me was them waking up at dawn and going to bed in the same room at night, every day for weeks, wearing a yellow jump suit (so that the chicks would bond/imprint with them as surrogate mothers). Attenborough even says, "the pay is awful" - they are basically volunteers.

This makes me think of the "Moral Equivalent of War" - I mean, in some ways we really are in a war for sanity - nothing else explains such level of motivation. Those women are literally living their lives to the full fighting for something they passionately believe in.

I am a bit envious that these people have found something so meaningful to do with their time.

There was a similar project with Sandhill cranes in the US, starting in the 90s. It looks like there are questions about making the parenting too easy and not preparing the young for life on their own, so that specific program ended.

It seems like a useful tool for keeping a population alive and getting them to good places, but there are limits to using it long term. Still, as a way to get captive raised birds into the wild it seems like about the only good option.

https://www.spokesman.com/stories/1997/oct/10/pilot-to-crane... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Migration

What in the world are they flying? Is that a dune buggy-airboat hybrid with a glider parachute?

Edit: looks like its called a “powered parachute”: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powered_parachute

This is covered a little bit in episode 8, Heroes, of Planet Earth III, though this article has significantly more detail .

A quite similar story to the one depicted in Spread Your Wings (Donne-moi des Ailes).

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10204940/

I seem to remember someone doing something almost exactly like this, in the 1980s/90s or so.

It may have been the same folks. They’ve been doing this for a while.

I’m honestly not sure if it’s okay nowadays to say this out loud (even when it’s positive), but the pilots are both girls. Fantastic role models, protecting the nature AND by doing something usually considered a male activity. (the gender ratio in aviation is abysmal)