A Different Kind of Co-pilot
Picture a microlight aircraft cruising low over the hills of the Cantal region in southern France, with a skein of geese flying alongside it, matching its speed, holding formation, wingtip to wingtip. Not fleeing. Actually flying with it, the way birds fly with each other.
That is Christian Moullec’s working environment. A former meteorologist turned conservationist, Moullec has spent decades piloting his two-seater microlight alongside flocks of endangered migratory birds, physically guiding them along routes he has selected. The birds follow willingly. His organization, Voler Avec Les Oiseaux (Fly With Birds), has been running this since 1995.
Why a Bird Would Follow a Plane
The mechanism is imprinting, first documented systematically by Austrian zoologist Konrad Lorenz in 1935. When certain bird species hatch, there is a brief window during which they bond to the first consistent moving presence they encounter. In the wild, that is their mother. In Moullec’s setup, it is Moullec himself.
He raises his birds from eggs, sleeps near them, and bathes alongside them, making himself the central figure in their early lives. By the time a chick is ready to fly, it sees the figure it trusts moving in a direction worth following. Microlights are slow by aviation standards, and the species Moullec works with, several varieties of geese, swans, and cranes, are strong enough fliers to keep pace. English YouTuber Tom Scott flew alongside Moullec in May 2022 and described getting close enough to touch the tail feathers of a goose in mid-air.
The Conservation Logic Behind the Route
Moullec’s first mission, in 1995, was to reintroduce lesser white-fronted geese into the wild in Lapland, guiding birds from Germany to Sweden along a safer migration corridor. The species was in serious trouble. The lesser white-fronted goose (Anser erythropus) is classified as Vulnerable on the global IUCN Red List and Critically Endangered under the 2015 European Red List of Birds. The 20th century reduced the Fennoscandian population from more than 10,000 individuals to fewer than 100; the current count sits at roughly 105 to 120 birds, around 30 to 35 adult breeding pairs.
When numbers fall that low, historic migration routes can themselves become a problem, stopover sites degrade, hunting pressure persists. Moullec’s approach is to lead birds toward destinations where they have a better chance. One recorded journey took 33 lesser white-fronted geese from northern Sweden to southwestern Germany over five weeks. He has since flown with barnacle, brant, bar-headed, and snow geese; whooper and Bewick’s swans; common, demoiselle, and crowned cranes; pintail ducks, and others.
The Funding Model Nobody Expected
Moullec finances the operation not through institutional grants but by selling seats on the flights directly to tourists. From March through October, paying passengers can book a place in his microlight and fly alongside the birds during actual escort missions. Around 2022, that experience cost roughly €636 for approximately an hour in the air. The spectacle that results from the conservation work is the thing being sold, and each ticket funds the next flight.
What the Numbers Don’t Yet Tell Us
The behavioral science behind imprinting is solid, and the species Moullec works with genuinely need intervention. What is still missing is hard outcome data. There is no published, peer-reviewed record establishing how many birds have been successfully redirected or what effect that has had on population figures. That absence does not mean the work is ineffective, it means the impact has not been formally quantified for scientific comparison. The Fennoscandian population remains critically small, with only around 105 to 120 individuals surviving in the wild. Whether flights like Moullec’s are part of what stabilizes it remains an open question.