Conservation History
Learn about the challenges, successes, and what’s to come for the conservation of whooping cranes.
Pre-1900s
An Uncertain Future
Population Historic
Wild: 10,000 plus
The first evidence of Whooping cranes, Grus americana, in North America dates back to 3.5 million years ago during the Pliocene epoch as descendants of a group of cranes that arose in Asia, including the Eurasian, hooded, and black-necked crane.
An artist’s rendering of the landscape of the Pliocene epoch shows the environment at the time of man’s appearance. Credit: Drawn by Edouard Riou Ridpath, 1895
1895 Atrist Rendering of Landscape of the Pliocene epoch showing environment at the time of men’s appearance drawn by Riou: Ridpath, John Clark, 1840-1900
An illustration of a whooping crane. Credit: Art by John James Audubon, 1827
Whooping cranes were never a common species, but at the end of the last ice age (approximately 11,500 years ago), their population likely exceeded 10,000 across North America, according to recent genomic studies. Whooping cranes primarily nested in the Upper Midwest. Some populations of whooping cranes migrated long distances to nesting grounds, while others were non-migratory, spending the entire year in one area.
The significance of whooping cranes to indigenous people was revealed through an archeological discovery along the upper Texas Gulf Coast at Mitchell Ridge. Bone whistles, crafted from whooping crane wing bones and adorned with intricate carvings, were found in graves dating back to 1200 CE. These whistles were buried with prominent members of the Atakapa-speaking groups, like the Akokisa aboriginal peoples, highlighting their cultural significance.
Early eighteenth-century graveside scene at Mitchell Ridge as envisioned by artist Frank Weir. Credit: Art by Frank Weir, courtesy of TexasBeyondHistory.net
Musical instruments such as these engraved whistles made from whooping crane leg bones were among the grave offerings from Mitchell Ridge. Credit: Adapted from Ricklis, 1994, Figure 8.18. courtesy TexasBeyondHistory.net
As European settlers pushed west in the 1800s, the large, white whooping cranes were prime targets for trade, sustenance, museum collections, and trophies in an era of unregulated hunting. The exploitation of whooping cranes led to their decline and was compounded by habitat loss through the destruction and drainage of wetlands.
A hunter poses for a photo with a whooping crane he shot in 1888, in Elm Creek, Nebraska. Credit: ©Joel Sartore
A hunter poses for a photo with a whooping crane he shot in 1888, in Elm Creek, Nebraska. Credit: ©Joel Sartore
A historic range map of whooping cranes from Robert Porter Allen’s The Whooping Crane Book. Credit: Map drawn by Robert Porter Allen, 1952
Market hunting, which was large-scale and unregulated in the late 1800s, left wildlife populations across North America in peril as their hides and meat were harvested as products on a commercial scale. In its wake, a conservation movement began to grow, offering a glimmer of hope in an uncertain time for the continent’s wildlife.
“While on our journey several Otoes hurried up, to tell us that about a dozen white cranes were standing upon a sandbar in the Platte…one of the birds, that was standing with its head closely snugged up against its breast, and gazing in moralizing mood upon the swift water, suddenly shot out a neck three feet long, and turned a quick and steady eye…He gazed a moment, then taking a step, and slowly raising his wings until their tips nearly met over his back, rose from the earth,..uttering a shrill cry which brought his startled comrades after him…Slowly they mounted in the air, floating like snowflakes over the river…”
– John Treat Irving, 1888, from Indian Sketches: Taken during a U.S. expedition to make treaties with the Pawnee and other tribes of American Indians, Pg. 236
1900s
Flight and Fancy
Population 1900s
Unknown
In the early 1900s, feathers from birds were often used as decorative plumes for women’s hats. Credit: Art by Adolphe Millot, between 1907-1910
In the early 1900s, feathers from birds were often used as decorative plumes for women’s hats. Credit: Art by Adolphe Millot, between 1907-1910
1895 Atrist Rendering of Landscape of the Pliocene epoch showing environment at the time of men’s appearance drawn by Riou: Ridpath, John Clark, 1840-1900
America’s first wildlife refuge manager, Paul Kroegal of Sebastian, Florida, with a brown pelican at Pelican Island National Wildlife Refuge. Credit: Photo taken in 1907
In 1903, President Theodore Roosevelt established North America’s first National Wildlife Refuge at Pelican Island in Florida to protect the area’s birds from commercial hunters selling feathers to adorn women’s hats. In time, the National Wildlife Refuge system would become critical for the survival of the last whooping cranes.
The Massachusetts Audubon Society, alongside other state Audubon Societies, led the effort to form the National Association of Audubon Societies in 1905, which would later be known as the National Audubon Society, one of the oldest environmental conservation organizations dedicated to protecting birds and their habitats.
Portrait of Harriet Lawrence Hemenway, who cofounded the Massachusetts Audubon Society. Hemenway was instrumental in early conservation efforts by urging women to stop wearing feathered hats and inviting them to join the Massachusetts Audobon Society. Credit: Painting by John Singer Sargent, 1890
“Those who witness crane flocks discover an ancient creature’s response to a crowded and changing world. Our challenge is to rediscover old balances and create new ones, linking cranes, the land, and people.”
Jim Harris, International Crane Foundation
1910s
Umbrella of Protection
Population 1910s
Unknown
Once massive, flocks of passenger pigeons dwindled rapidly in numbers due to unregulated hunting and eventually became extinct. The last living individual was named Martha in 1914. Credit: Illustration by Frank Leslie, 1867
The unregulated killing of whooping cranes and other migratory birds continued into the early 1910s.
In one instance, four whooping cranes were shot in Cherry County, Nebraska, on October 16, 1912, which was a significant portion of their population at that time. In 1918, the Migratory Bird Treaty Act was signed into law, outlawing the unauthorized killing or capture of migratory birds.
A five-cent U.S. postage stamp printed in 1966 commemorates the fiftieth anniversary of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. After the passage of the Act in 1918, the hunting and interstate transport of protected migratory bird species was outlawed. Credit: Designed by Burt E. Pringle at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, 1966
Carolina parakeets in the Kansas University Ornithology Collection. Credit: Photo by Madeline Cass
Carolina parakeets in the Kansas University Ornithology Collection. Credit: Photo by Madeline Cass
While the passage of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act was too late to save the passenger pigeon and Carolina parakeet, it came at a critical time to protect the last of the whooping cranes.
A display of taxidermied whooping cranes in a habitat diorama at the Hastings Museum in Nebraska, formerly known as the House of Yesterday. The birds were collected over thirty years between 1899 and 1917. Albert Brooking, the Museum’s founder, reworked a few mounts to give them a more natural appearance. The display is a depiction of a time when whooping cranes were at an all-time low in the wild. Credit: Photo collected by Robert Porter Allen, 1930
A display of taxidermied whooping cranes in a habitat diorama at the Hastings Museum in Nebraska, formerly known as the House of Yesterday. The birds were collected over thirty years between 1899 and 1917. Albert Brooking, the Museum’s founder, reworked a few mounts to give them a more natural appearance. The display is a depiction of a time when whooping cranes were at an all-time low in the wild. Credit: Photo collected by Robert Porter Allen, 1930
“To hold in your hands a member of a species which was reduced to less than 25 individuals is something only a handful of people will ever get to experience. But to watch a magnificent species come back from the brink of extinction and with our help, hopefully continue to flourish and grow in number, is something everyone can share in, and more than that, pass onto those who will follow in our footsteps.”
Dave Brandt, 2024, Wildlife biologist, North Dakota
1920s
Winter Refuge & Summer Sanctuary
Population 1920s
Unknown
In 1922, the Canadian government established Wood Buffalo National Park in the Northwest Territories to protect the wood bison. It would become the world’s second-largest national park, covering over 17,000 square miles of land.
“The last of the Canadian buffaloes. Photo No. 580.” Credit: Photo by Steele and Company, 1902
“The last of the Canadian buffaloes. Photo No. 580.” Credit: Photo by Steele and Company, 1902
Wood Buffalo National Park from an airplane. Credit: Photo by Michael Forsberg, 2022
Unknown at the time, the establishment of Wood Buffalo National Park also protected the critically important nesting and breeding grounds of wild whooping cranes. In particular, the Aransas-Wood Buffalo population, which migrates along the Central Flyway between northern Canada and the Texas Gulf Coast through the Great Plains.
Aransas National Wildlife Refuge from an airplane. Credit: Photo by Michael Forsberg, 2022
Also, in 1922, a game warden in Saskatchewan discovered the only whooping crane nest known to Canada at Kiyiu Lake. While observing the whooping crane pair, the warden heard a piping call coming from the nest, which turned out to be a newly hatched whooping crane chick. He then grabbed the bird and dispatched the chick to preserve it for the sake of science. At the time, collecting the natural world for later use as a museum or collection specimen was common. This whooping crane chick now resides in the Royal Ontario Museum.
“… man in civilization surveys the creature through the glass of his knowledge … For the animal shall not be measured by man … They are not brethren, they are not underlings: they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendor and travail of the earth.”
Henry Beston, 1928, The Outermost House, pg. 25
1930s
Counting on the Migration
Population 1938
In 1934, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed into law the Migratory Bird Hunting and Conservation Stamp Act. “The Duck Stamp”, as it was later known, required hunters to purchase a stamp before hunting waterfowl. The proceeds were used to help protect wetlands and waterfowl habitat. The thumb-sized stamps have protected 6.5 million acres of wildlife habitat, helping whooping cranes on their perilous migratory journey.
In 1937 the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge was created, safeguarding the important wintering grounds of the last known population of wild migratory whooping cranes. The refuge also protected habitat for many other wildlife species such as marsh and shorebirds. In the fall of 1938, James Stevenson, the first resident manager of Aransas NWR, led the first whooping crane count. He found a total of 18 whooping cranes, four of which were juveniles.
All too often, whooping cranes were the subject of wanton shootings. Those that were hit rarely survived, yet some did. One such crane found their fate hanging by a thread after being shot and left for dead along Nebraska’s Platte River in 1936. He suffered severe injuries, a broken wing, and a missing eye, but two young girls and their father nursed this young crane back to health. The father’s gun club later made him their mascot for twelve years, naming him One-Eyed Pete. Pete’s story continued as he made his way to the Audubon Zoo in New Orleans, but mistreatment at the zoo led Robert Porter Allen, an American ornithologist, to have them moved to the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge. Pete and his mate, Josephine, could not return to the wild because they were too accustomed to people. Instead, they lived in large enclosures in a natural setting at the refuge.
“When we hear his call, we hear no mere bird. We hear the trumpet in the orchestra of evolution. He is the symbol of our untamable past, of that incredible sweep of millennia which underlies and conditions the daily affairs of birds and men.”
Aldo Leopold, 1937, Marshland Elegy, pg. 109
1940s
Dwindling Numbers
Population
Whooping crane numbers continued to decline as compounding threats loomed large. In 1944, the entire wild whooping crane population reached an all-time low of 21 individuals observed. After a hurricane struck the Louisiana Coast, the wild non-migratory population was reduced from 13 cranes to six. In Texas, the wild Aransas-Wood Buffalo migratory population was down to 15 birds.
The Louisiana whooping crane population experienced severe habitat destruction after the completion of the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway of Louisiana at the end of the decade. This waterway connected hunters to vast coastal marshes and threatened tallgrass prairies because of the growing production of rice farms. Before its construction, Louisiana had six whooping cranes, and one remained after its completion.
Portrait of Robert Porter Allen. Photo credit Alice Allen.
The chance to protect these birds was fading quickly. In 1946, the ornithologist Robert Porter Allen was called to action by the National Audubon Society. Allen’s job was to help rescue whooping cranes from the brink of extinction and search for their northern Canadian breeding grounds.
- Carousel of Robert Porter Allen’s photographs and collections. Credit: Robert Porter Allen Audubon Collection/University of South Florida Digital Collections
“There are left in the world today only 29 known whooping cranes, a North American bird which once covered the prairies by the thousands. One of the survivors lives on a game reserve in Nebraska, another in a zoo in New Orleans. Two are spending this winter in a Louisiana marsh. The other 25 are in marshes along the Texas coast where Robert Allen, ornithologist of the National Audubon Society, has been hiding in a dummy cow to observe the cranes and see what can be done by man to save them from extinction.”
Whooping Cranes: Ornithologist Studies Ways to Save Biggest U.S. Bird from Extinction. LIFE magazine, March 3, 1947
1950s
Rediscovering the Whooping Crane
Population
When whooping crane recovery became a focus, researchers began to study their natural history. In 1952, after years of observing the life of whooping cranes on their wintering grounds, Robert Porter Allen published The Whooping Crane, a book detailing whooping crane behavior and biology.
The search for the wild whooping crane’s nesting grounds continued into the early 1950s. On their way back from a forest fire on June 30, 1954, Don Landalls and George Wilson, pilots from the Canadian Forestry Service, accompanied by Bill Fuller of the Canadian Wildlife Services, spotted whooping cranes near the Sass River. A year later, in April 1955, Bill Fuller and Ray Stewart, made the first observation of a whooping crane nest on the upper Sass River in Canada’s Northwest Territories.
This decade also saw some of the first breakthroughs in the captive rearing of whooping cranes, a technique used in wildlife conservation to collect eggs from the wild, hatch and raise the chicks, and release them back into their native ecosystems.
“When you sit crouched in a blind and watch an adult Whooper stride close by you, his head high and proud, his bearing arrogant and imposing, you feel the presence of a strength and of a stubborn will to survive that is one of the vital intangibles of this entire situation. Certainly it cannot be overlooked. We have a strong conviction that the Whooping Crane will keep his part of the bargain and will fight for survival every inch of the way. What are we going to do to help? Here, in this report, is the challenge, here is the job that must be done.”
Robert Porter Allen, 1952, The Whooping Crane
1960s
Endangered in the Making
Population
In 1962, Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring brought widespread attention to the negative impacts of DDT and other pesticides. It became a catalyst for the modern environmental movement. By 1966, the United States Congress passed the Endangered Species Preservation Act, laying the groundwork for more robust endangered species protections in the coming decade. Whooping cranes were protected under that act and given endangered status in 1967.
In 1967 at the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center, the birthplace of the whooping crane breeding program, the first whooping crane chicks were hatched in captivity from 12 eggs that had been collected in the wild.
With whooping crane populations so low, extreme rescue measures had to be implemented. In 1966, Canadian Wildlife Service biologist Ernie Kuyt and his team began collecting wild whooping crane eggs in Wood Buffalo National Park. Whooping cranes typically only lay two eggs, but on average, only one chick survives. From each nest they found, Ernie and his team removed only one egg, which was carried in a sock, and transported in an incubator warmed by hot water bottles. The collected eggs were taken to the Patuxent Center. There, chicks were hatched and reared to establish a captive population and some were released into the wild to create a species bank to ensure genetic diversity in both the Aransas-Wood Buffalo and reintroduced populations.
“Over increasingly large areas of the United States, spring now comes unheralded by the return of the birds, and the early mornings are strangely silent where once they were filled with the beauty of bird song.”
Rachel Carson, 1962, Silent Spring, pg. 103
1970s
Founding the Future
Population
At the turn of the decade, whooping cranes obtained endangered species status in the U.S. under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). The ESA, which became an official law in 1973, went a step further in protecting imperiled species than the Endangered Species Preservation Act of 1966.
George Archibald and the whooping crane named Gee Wiz.
George Archibald and the whooping crane named Gee Wiz.
Throughout the 1970s, many conservation initiatives were founded, including one that would secure the whooping crane in the public eye. The International Crane Foundation of Wisconsin was founded in 1973 by two enthusiastic Cornell University graduate students and friends, George Archibald and Ron Sauey. Their most urgent goal at the time was to develop a species bank for the world’s 15 crane species as they were all considered threatened or endangered.
In Nebraska, Audubon Rowe Sanctuary was established in 1974, along one of the most pristine Sandhill Crane roosts in the Platte River. Four years later, the Platte River Whooping Crane Maintenance Trust, later known as The Crane Trust, was founded just downstream. The Trust embarked on its decades-long mission to protect critical stopover habitats along the Platte River for resident and migrating species, such as the endangered whooping crane.
In 1975, conservationists started placing whooping crane eggs in the nests of sandhill cranes at Grays Lake National Wildlife Refuge in Idaho to establish a second migratory population of whooping cranes. This technique is known as cross-fostering, by which an offspring of a species is removed from the care of their parents and raised by surrogate parents. However, the project faced challenges, such as whooping crane chicks imprinting on sandhill cranes, which meant they were unlikely to mate with other whooping cranes.
“In international affairs, it’s important to focus on matters of mutual interest, rather than conflict. Cranes are really good ambassadors for habitat and international good will.”
George Archibald, Co-Founder of the International Crane Foundation
1980s
Raising the Next Generation
Population
Whooping crane biologists learned from the failed experiment at Grays Lake and began using whooping crane puppets to rear chicks to prevent them from imprinting on humans and sandhill cranes. The costumes look like adult whooping cranes, which helped chicks imprint properly to their species.
In 1986, the Canadian government recognized the need to protect the whooping crane officially and created the Canadian Whooping Crane Recovery Plan and Recovery Strategy. These documents eventually evolved into an International Recovery Plan.
On the tarmac of a local Wisconsin airport, the International Crane Foundation and Patuxent Wildlife Research Center team gather to greet the new whooping crane arrivals. The whooping crane recovery team realized that it wasn’t safe to have all the eggs in one basket, or a majority of the remaining whooping cranes held at the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center. If a natural disaster or a disease outbreak were to occur, it would have the potential to wipe out those birds and maybe doom the species altogether. So the flock was split and half went to Baraboo, Wisconsin. The team met the whooping cranes on the ground at the airport, where they were transported by wooden crates. Credit: Photo courtesy of the International Crane Foundation, 1989
In the 1970s and 1980s, several important environmental regulations and treaties were implemented that helped protect whooping cranes and the wetland habitats that they rely on. The Ramsar Convention treaty was signed in 1971 as an international agreement for promoting the protection and conservation of wetlands worldwide. What followed was the Clean Water Act of 1972, and the North American Wetlands Conservation Act of 1989, both of which protected wetlands.
Canadian Whooping Crane Recovery Plan. Photo credit Environment Canada.
“If your heart isn’t raised by the sight of whooping cranes restored to their ancient flyway, you must not have a pulse.”
Robin Wall Kimmerer, 2013, Braiding Sweetgrass, pg. 320
1990s
Leading the Migration
Population
In 1993, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) released the first juvenile whooping cranes, which were raised through costume-rearing techniques, at Florida’s Kissimmee Prairie. Wildlife biologists chose Florida because records supported the effort to reintroduce a non-migratory population. Conservationists hoped that these whooping cranes would establish an additional self-sustaining population.
With the whooping crane population on the rise both in the wild and in captivity, the Whooping Crane Recovery Team decided in 1997 to stop the collection of wild whooping crane eggs from Wood Buffalo National Park.
In one instance, four whooping cranes were shot in Cherry County, Nebraska, on October 16, 1912. In 1918, the Migratory Bird Treaty Act was signed into law, preventing the unauthorized killing or capture of migratory birds.
In 1994, Bill Lishman and Joe Duff launched “Operation Migration” to teach migratory birds such as geese how to navigate their ancestral flyways. This was the first time humans led a bird migration. As momentum built in the recovery of whooping cranes, the Whooping Crane Eastern Partnership was founded in 1999. The partnership was composed of over nine government and private organizations to restore a migratory flock to eastern North America under the recommendations of the Whooping Crane Recovery Team.
“If any single bird species symbolizes the North American conservation movement of this century, and the closeness many wildlife species came to extinction, it is the whooping crane.”
Paul Johnsgard, 1991, Crane Music, pg. 149
2000s
Hard Landing
Population
Whooping crane populations have seen many failures and successes over the last 200 years. Although their total population has been on a steady rise in the past few decades, they still face the perils of a 21st-century world.
In 2001, in collaboration with the Whooping Crane Eastern Partnership, the Operation Migration team used ultralight aircraft for the first time to help young whooping cranes establish an eastern migration route. Pilots wore whooping crane costumes as a captive-rearing technique, an important step for chicks to imprint on something that resembles a whooping crane adult. These measures were necessary to attempt to establish a permanent eastern migratory population. To this day, chicks are still reared with costumes following strict protocols, even for the eggs. Chicks destined for reintroduction never see or hear “humans” before they are released.
In 2004, after low survival and reproduction rates and consultation with the International Whooping Crane Recovery Team, the reintroduction of the non-migratory Florida population was halted by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
A portrait of a whooping crane from Joel Sartore’s Photo Ark. Sartore founded the Photo Ark in 2005 because he and his team are on a mission to photograph the beauty and diversity of every species in captivity to get the world to care. Many species in his proverbial ark are endangered or imperiled. The photos Sartore takes are sometimes the last records of a species before they meet extinction. Credit: Photo by ©Joel Sartore/ Photo Ark
In June of 2006, news that two wild whooping crane chicks hatched in the wild prairie wetlands of Wisconsin reached the public. This event marked the first time in over 100 years that wild whooping cranes were hatched in the Midwest.
“The wildlife equivalent of putting a man on the moon… unlike the voyage to the moon, we hope the cranes will be part of a continuing migration.”
Marshall Jones, acting director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, in reference to Operation Migration
2010s
Rising with the Winds
Population
-
Whooping crane biologists and researchers at White Lakes Conservation Area in Louisiana. Credit: photos by Michael Forsberg, 2021, 2023
Whooping crane populations continued to rise in the Aransas-Wood Buffalo population. In 2011, biologists from the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries released whooping cranes in southwest Louisiana to re-establish a wild, non-migratory population.
During their long migration across the heart of North America, whooping cranes must navigate across hundreds of pipelines, thousands of miles of power lines, and a sea of industrial agriculture. In 2008 the energy company TransCanada proposed the Keystone XL pipeline, a 1,179-mile pipeline that would have transported oil from Canada’s tar sands through critical whooping crane habitat. The pipeline was strongly opposed by environmentalists and the project was initially rejected by the Obama administration in 2015. In 2017, the Trump administration signed an executive order to move the project forward and illegally obtained a permit, but it was ultimately rejected by the Biden administration in 2021. Additionally, Nebraska had initiated a grassroots bipartisan movement to oppose the pipeline.
In 2017, after more than 50 years of captive whooping crane breeding, the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center ended its program, transferring all of its birds to the International Crane Foundation and the Calgary Zoo. The final curtain call came after a decision by the Trump administration to eliminate the breeding program run by the U.S. Geological Survey on a federal Fish and Wildlife Service refuge.
In 2018, Heather Henson’s show “Ajijaak on Turtle Island” debuted, leveraging stage show production with life-sized puppetry to tell the story of a young whooping crane on its first adventure-filled and risky migration. Through the narration and performance of Indigenous peoples and the incorporation of Indigenous stories and legends that have been passed down through the generations, the public was immersed into a world not many get to witness.
“Ajijaak on Turtle Island is a metaphor about how we need to take care of Mother Earth and one another. This story is written and is to be experienced from an Indigenous/First Nations perspective. Ajijaak and Mishibizhiw are entities in stories I would hear as a youth going to the roundhouse. The teaching of giving is threaded throughout and experiencing ritual and ceremony as performance, the elemental forces of nature, and how we as humans can learn from the two-legged, four-legged, winged, rooted, and finned.”
Ty Defoe, 2018, Ajijaak, Oneida/Ojibwe Nations
2020s
Hope Remains
Population 2024
Despite the setbacks that whooping cranes have faced since early conservation efforts, there is still a flame of hope. Surveys in 2023 reveal a record number of wild whooping cranes, the highest since the surveys for the Aransas-Wood Buffalo population began in 1938.
The Freeport-McMoran Audubon Species Survival Center in New Orleans, part of the Audubon Institute, started in 1993 to help protect and increase endangered species populations. Today, they are one of only seven breeding facilities for whooping cranes in the world. The United States Fish and Wildlife Service, Louisiana Department of Fisheries and Wildlife, and Audubon Species Survival Center have set a long-term goal to establish a self-sustaining whooping crane population in Louisiana.
Yet disheartening news persists in the conservation world as the public continues to hear about individual whooping cranes that have been poached or found dead after striking power lines. Climate change introduces new hazards for whooping cranes, which face threats from drought, rising sea levels, and habitat loss.
1989 milestone on the ICF Whooper Timeline https://whooper-timeline.savingcranes.org/
Even a small change in the protected status of the whooping crane from Endangered to Threatened could drastically weaken protections for this species. Although that is unlikely to happen because of the United States and Canada’s “Memorandum of Understanding on Conservation of Whooping Cranes”, downlisting would be allowable if the Aransas-Wood Buffalo Population reaches more than 1,000 individuals with more than 250 breeding pairs self-sustaining for over ten years.
On a positive note, technological advances like the “Avian Collision Avoidance System” which uses UV lights to illuminate high-voltage power lines, offer new ways to protect migratory birds. While promising, the technology’s widespread implementation and long-term effectiveness continue to be studied.
Ajijakk show by Heather Henson made it’s debut in 2018.
Wood Buffalo National Park Aerial
Wood Buffalo National Park Aerial
Wood Buffalo National Park Aerial
The community of people dedicated to caring for these angel-white birds continues to grow, and with that, a beacon of hope remains. Michael Forsberg’s self-published 2024 book, Into Whooperland, chronicles the last five years he has worked to document the hidden lives of whooping cranes while sharing insight from those who have dedicated their lives to these birds. Forsberg shines a light into the beautiful dance of life that whooping cranes lead and the harrowing journey they must undertake every year.
Wood Buffalo National Park Aerial
“The question that I started with four years ago still haunts me today: Can whooping cranes survive us and our 21st-century world? The answer and the power to decide rest squarely in our hands.”
Michael Forsberg, 2024, Into Whooperland.