GRAND CHENIER- The Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries announced on Tuesday that a group of 12 juvenile whooping cranes were released into LDWF's Rockefeller Wildlife Refuge on the coast of South Louisiana.

The juvenile cranes will join 49 other whooping cranes that are a part of an experimental population being monitored by LDWF.

Of the 12 cranes, seven were reared at Patuxent Wildlife Research Center in Maryland, two were raised at Calgary Zoo in Canada, and three were hatched from eggs collected from the wild in Wisconsin and reared at the Freeport-McMoRan Audubon Species Survival Center in New Orleans.

Before their release, all 12 cranes were brought to the Species Survival Center where they formed a "cohort," meaning they assembled to live and migrate together, and eventually learned to socialize and thrive as a group.

The Nov. 14th release is a part of an ongoing effort to protect the species from extinction.