Whooping Crane
Protected Habitat and Captive Rearing
No bird better symbolizes national and international conservation
efforts than the Whooping Crane. Probably never common, the species
suffered from sport hunting and loss of prairie marsh habitat. Its
population reached its lowest level in the 1940s, when only 16 wild
individuals returned to their traditional wintering area on the Texas
coast.
Intensive conservation efforts have raised the Whooping Crane's
numbers to more secure levels. These include protection of breeding,
migration, and wintering areas, as well as captive-rearing and release
programs.
This map shows the distribution of wild and introduced Whooping Crane
populations. Green areas denote breeding grounds of wild populations,
blue areas are wintering grounds, and dark lines enclose migration
corridors between the two.
As of 2001, the only self-sustaining wild population was nesting in
Wood Buffalo National Park in Canada's Northwest Territories, and
wintering at the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge on the Texas coast.
During the 1990s a nonmigratory Whooping Crane flock was established in
the Kissimmee Prairie, Florida (red area on the map) using birds from
captive rearing programs at the International Crane Foundation, the
Patuxent Wildlife Research Center, and the Calgary Zoo. Numbering 91
individuals by February 2000, some of these birds have started to
breed, although their survival is not without problems.
After five years of planning, the Whooping Crane Eastern Partnership
launched a bold effort in October 2001 to introduce a migratory
Whooping Crane flock to Florida. Eight Whooping Crane juveniles were
trained to follow an ultralight aircraft, making their southward
journey from Necedah National Wildlife Refuge in Wisconsin to Florida's
Chassahowitska National Wildlife Refuge (red line on the map).
Biologists hoped that the young cranes would make the return journey
northward in spring alone. In April 2002 their dream came true—five of
the young cranes migrated north successfully. Similar ambitious plans
exist for migratory populations in the prairie provinces of Canada.
Thanks to these and other conservation efforts, the Whooping Crane's once-tenuous future seems more assured.