There is something almost mystical about cranes. They are an ancient genus, and their voices, loud and wild, seem like echoes of the past. They are also elegant birds, with long legs, long necks, and long sharp beaks, all suiting them for the grasslands and wetlands where they forage. There are many species of cranes in the world today: Almost all of them are endangered.
This chapter describes the Herculean efforts, by countless dedicated men and women, to save the whooping crane from extinction. They are the only cranes native to North America. Standing between four and five feet high, they are magnificent, with snowy white plumage except for a brilliant red cap on the top of their head, black facial markings, and black primaries clearly visible in flight. With their long spear-like beaks and fierce golden eyes, they can be formidable when protecting their young.
When Europeans first arrived in North America, it’s estimated that whooping cranes numbered at least ten thousand. They wintered in the highlands of central Mexico and on the Gulf Coast of Texas and Louisiana, as well as the southeast Atlantic seaboard, including Delaware and the Chesapeake Bay. Their breeding grounds were many—throughout the central prairies of the United States and well into central Alberta, Canada. But by the end of the nineteenth century, migratory whooping cranes were no longer breeding anywhere in the US. And by 1930, they were no longer breeding on the Alberta prairies. In fact, no one knew where the last migrating birds were breeding, except that it was somewhere in Canada.
One nonmigratory flock of whooping cranes in Louisiana continued nesting there through the 1930s, but in 1940, when only thirteen birds remained, a hurricane scattered this remnant group, and though six survived, they were doomed. And by this time, fewer than thirty of the migrating whooping cranes were arriving in the fall in Texas (in the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge) from their unknown breeding grounds in the Canadian North. The days of the whooping crane seemed numbered, and most people felt that nothing could be done to save them.