Legal Snafu Grounds a Bird Migration

http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/07/legal-snafu-grounds-a-bird-migration/

The Federal Aviation Administration classifies the ultralights as
“light sport aircraft,” a category with simplified licensing rules. Such
aircraft can carry only one or two people, cannot fly in congested areas and
cannot fly for hire, among other restrictions.

The question is, are the pilots flying for hire?

David Sakrison, a member of the board of directors of Operation Migration and a
spokesman for the group, said that it owns three ultralights. There are three
pilots, all employees of the group, and nearly all of their work was on the
ground, he added. The birds fly only an hour or two a day, not every day, and
the pilots are volunteering their time in the air, he said.

http://www.change.org/petitions/faa-allow-endangered-whooping-cranes-to-finish-migration-fix-permit-later

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2012/01/09/us/AP-US-Drought-Whooping-Cranes.html?hp

Raising its slim, white neck out of the waters of the Gulf of
Mexico, one of the world's last surviving whooping cranes hungrily searches a
Texas marsh for the blue crabs and berries it devours during its annual
migration to the Gulf Coast.

The high-protein diet is supposed to sustain North America's tallest bird
through the winter and prepare it for the nesting season in Canada. But this
year, the state's devastating drought has made food and water scarce, raising
worries among scientists that the parched conditions could threaten the only
remaining flock of cranes.

The lack of rain has made estuaries and marshlands too salty for blue crabs to
thrive and destroyed a usually plentiful supply of wolf berries. In addition, a
long-lasting "red tide" — a toxic algae that blooms in salty water — has made it
dangerous for the birds to eat clams, which retain the algae's toxin and can
pass it along the food chain.