Crane chick heads south with parents

Milwaukee: One of the first whooping crane chicks hatched in the wild in more than a century is making more history as it migrates south with its parents from a refuge.

The chick, whose sibling apparently was killed by a predator, hatched in June at the Necedah National Wildlife Refuge in central Wisconsin, according to Operation Migration, the group coordinating an effort to establish a second migrating flock of the birds in North America.

The journey south toward Florida began on Sunday. As of Thursday the three were stopped in Indiana. The whooping crane, the tallest bird in North America, was near extinction in 1941, with only about 20 left.