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A large autographed poster hangs on the wall of Joe Duff's office on High Street in Port Perry. It’s from the movie Fly Away Home, the 1996 Para- mount production featuring Jeff Daniels and a young Anna Paquin. The movie, shot in part in Port Perry, was the “inspired by a true story” (loosely) account of a family who lead a flock of geese on their migratory route using an ultralight aircraft. Most residents of Port Perry know the movie. But what came after the movie - and after the geese — may not be so well-known. The geese, in fact, were more like the pre-flight check phase of Operation Migra- tion, the organization founded by Bill Lishman and Joe Duff in 1994, that has ecome a pioneer and global leader in teaching migratory toutes to endangered species using ultralight aviation. The geese were primarily about seeing what was possible — testing the limits of a crazy idea involving “a photographer and a sculptor transporting an endangered species,” says Duff (the photog- tapher part of the equation) who is co-founder, lead pilot and CEO of this small non-profit company. The idea hinged on the ability of an ultralight aircraft (picture a go-kart dangling from a hang-glider floating in the air above you) to lead a flock of birds from one end of a migratory route to another, and the ability of the birds to buy into the scheme. The idea worked. And it ~~ worked well. Today, Operation Migration leads the movement to save the wl rhooping crane, North America’s tallest bird, and one of the most endan- gered. “Back in 1940, there were only 15 birds left,” says Duff. They number in the hundreds now, thanks to the work of Operation Migration and the other nine members of The Whooping Crane Eastern Partnership. Captive whooping cranes lay eggs in five breeding centres in North America, one of which is located at the Calgary Zoo. The hatched chicks are sent to the Patuxant Wildlife Research Center in Maryland, where their earliest days are set to a sound- track of recorded ultralight noise and the brooding noises of See, Older cranes. “We do instant imprinting in full costume,” : Please turn to page 6 2 FOCUS - JULY 2012 5