Whooping Crane: Images from the Wild [1 ed.] 9781603443173, 9781603442091

Citation preview

Whoop ing Crane

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Whooping Crane Images from the Wild Klaus Nigge With an Introduction by Krista Schlyer

Texas A&M University Press  College Station, Texas

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Copyright © 2010 by Klaus Nigge Manufactured in China by Everbest Printing Co., through Four Colour Imports Ltd. All rights reserved First edition

This paper meets the requirements of ansi/niso, z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper). Binding materials have been chosen for durability.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Nigge, Klaus. Whooping crane : images from the wild / Klaus Nigge ; introduction by Krista Schlyer. — 1st ed. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN-13: 978-1-60344-209-1 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN-10: 1-60344-209-X (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Whooping crane—Texas—Aransas National Wildlife Refuge— Pictorial works.  2. Whooping crane—Wood Buffalo National Park (Alta. and N.W.T.)—Pictorial works.  3. Aransas National Wildlife Refuge (Tex.)—Pictorial works.  4. Wood Buffalo National Park (Alta. and N.W.T.)—Pictorial works. I. Title. QL696.G84N54  2010 598.3'2—dc22 2009048496

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Contents



Foreword, by George Archibald



Cofounder, International Crane Foundation



The Whooping Crane: An Introductory Primer



by Krista Schlyer



Aransas National Wildlife Refuge, Texas

27



Marshes & Wetlands

29



Meadows & Wilds

41



Competition

53



Midday Break

67

Peaceful Night

79



Wood Buffalo National Park, Canada

89

Remote Haven

91

vii

1



Breeding Responsibilities 103



Day by Day 119

Early One Morning 137 A Chick Emerges 147

Comes a Raven 161



Aransas Again 173



Twins in Tow 175

Learning Boundaries 187

The Evening Hour 199



Where to View Whoopers 213



The Photographer’s Craft 214



Further Reading 216

Acknowledgments 217

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Foreword Often I am asked why I have devoted my life to the conservation of



cranes. I reply that it all began in a one-room rural schoolhouse in

they were nesting inside the boundaries of one of the world’s larg-

Stillwater, Nova Scotia, where once a week students, from grades 1

est restricted areas, Wood Buffalo National Park, and that they were

through 6, listened to a thirty-minute radio broadcast about science.

well protected by authorities there, just as they were in winter at the

In early June of 1954, a few weeks after the breeding grounds of

Aransas National Wildlife Refuge.

the remaining few whooping cranes had been discovered acciden-



tally by a pilot flying low over Wood Buffalo National Park, in north-

And ever since then I have closely followed the unfolding saga of a

west Canada, the topic of the broadcast was a dramatization about

bird that has become an international symbol of conservation.

that highly threatened species.

Now, uniquely in the pages of this book, Klaus Nigge takes us



for the first time to the nesting habitat of a pair of whooping cranes

The program began with an imagined early April conversation

The program ended with the male crane assuring the female that

Throughout the program, I was sitting on the edge of my chair.

between a pair of whooping cranes on their protected wetlands at

and their newborn offspring in the wilderness of northern Canada,

the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge, on the shore of the Gulf of

and also photographically depicts the lives of that migrating popula-

Mexico in southern Texas. They lamented that their ancestors, who

tion in their more familiar wintering grounds on the Texas coast. I

had nested in abundance on wetlands of the Great Plains, had lost

am sure you will enjoy the story of these majestic birds as told in

their homes to human development and drainage of those sites,

Krista Schlyer’s informative introduction and as revealed by Nigge’s

and that the last cranes nesting on the prairies had their eggs stolen

outstanding photographic images.

by collectors. Fortunately, they remarked, far north of the prairies

I hope a copy of this remarkable book can become a center-

on a huge wetland complex, the breeding grounds of the survivors

piece in libraries and schools wherever cranes and humans con-

remained unknown and inaccessible to humans.

verge. After all, one never knows how effective such a message can

Only a few dozen of their kind survived in 1954. The cranes in

be in changing a child’s destiny.

the radio drama feared being shot during their 2,500-mile migration, especially in autumn when ducks and geese were hunted in

George Archibald

the same wetlands where the cranes rested in transit. But they took



Cofounder, International Crane Foundation

comfort in knowing that those remaining breeding grounds, at least, were in such a remote region that they had little possibility of being discovered.

The ICF logo expresses the elegance of cranes and the global, ecological nature of our mission. The shape

In the radio program, that pair of cranes returned safely to the

of the “dancing crane” comes from David Rankin’s

breeding area, built a nest, laid two eggs, and started to incubate.

crane evokes both sun and earth, symbolizing the

Then suddenly one day the female crane shrieked, “Help, help, we have been discovered! Someone in that helicopter is looking at us

painting of all 15 crane species. The arc about the global scope of our work. The river shape below the crane expresses our commitment to safeguarding the ecosystems on which cranes depend.

through binoculars. Perhaps they want to steal our eggs!” As a young schoolboy listening in, I could only share their alarm.

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The Whooping Crane An Introductory Primer by Krista Schlyer

Understanding the whooping crane, both its fit within the natural environment and its contributions to the human spirit, is a multifaceted challenge. Its stunning beauty and distinctive characteristics have made it a focus of many North American cultures and psyches over the millennia. In modern times, the story of its decline to unsustainable numbers and of its remarkable return, with the resourceful help of humanity, to its current, still highly fragile migrating population, makes the whooping crane an outstanding icon of natural and ecological preservation. In 1923, the Saturday Evening Post publicly mourned the demise of the latest wild species to succumb to the pressures of human expansion in North America. Less than a decade after the declared extinction of the passenger pigeon, the obituary read, “The whooping crane, perhaps the most majestic bird of all our feathered hosts, has traveled the long trail into oblivion.”

Fortunately, this and other reports of the whooping crane’s extinction were

exaggerated—but not greatly. In 1941, no more than twenty-one wild whooping cranes, including six in Louisiana, existed on earth. And so rapidly had the perilous situation arisen, or at least entered the consciousness of human minds, that very little was known about this bird—or how to save it. A feverish race ensued to learn everything possible about the white giant of North America’s marshes and coastal wetlands.

There are many who, like the Saturday Evening Post, would argue that the

whooping crane, Grus americana, must carry the banner of North America’s most beautiful bird. From its great height and mammoth angelic wings to its tendency toward dramatic dance and its bellowing song, the whooper exudes charisma. When the first human foot fell upon North America, the whooping crane was dancing upon the

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continent’s marshlands and soaring across its pristine skies. It was a wonder to our prehistoric eyes, and dappled within the earliest artifacts of human consciousness we find deep admiration for this bird. In the present day, the whooping crane draws visitors from all over the world to remote wetlands in Wisconsin and Texas. Its welfare attracts the eye of the international press with every major success or traumatic setback of its recovery. From the moment humanity recognized the perilous situation we had created for the whooping crane, we have been holding our collective breath and have been taking almost every possible measure to avoid its extinction. Incredible work has been done to save the whooper: from enlisting sandhill cranes as foster parents to having humans don amorphous white costumes in order to teach young chicks every life skill—whether drinking water or navigating a 1,200-mile migration from Wisconsin to Florida. Through exhaustive remedy, the wild population of this crane, including migratory and nonmigratory flocks, has grown to nearly 380 individuals, enough to transfer it out of the category of almostcertain extinction and into that of critically endangered. Yet despite these efforts, the fight to save the whooping crane is, sadly, far from over.

Fairy Tale Bird Many human societies and cultures around the world, both historic and prehistoric, have embraced the whooping crane (or one of its cousin species, such as the Japanese crane or the Eurasian crane) in their myths, fables, dances, representational art, and other foundational stories. Though different in form and detail, the central place of the crane in these accounts reveals the bird’s honored position and inspirational significance for mankind. Beauty demands immortality. And in the case of the crane, human culture has obliged. For thousands of years cranes have adorned paintings, inspired stories and dances, and settled into the very roots of our language

When early humans began to fan out over the earth, almost everywhere they went

they found a race of birds that equaled them in height, practiced elaborate dance rituals, and had the power to disappear into the sky for many months at a time. We know by the art they and subsequent cultures have left behind, that when their eyes beheld the crane they saw, not surprisingly, power, grace, freedom, and mystery. Whether from the strength and beauty of its wings—for some cranes, spanning seven feet or more—or its aristocratic grace, or the mystery that for so long surrounded its seasonal appearances and disappearances into the heights of an unattainable sky, the crane has for much of

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human history been admired and adopted as a teacher in human legend and lore. It has been called “the noblest thing that flies,” and its image has been emblazoned on everything from the humblest pottery to the tombs of Egyptian lords. In far-flung cultures, the stories took different forms, but many had similar or related meanings. In Japan, people crafted fables and artistic renditions of the sacred crane: embroidering its likeness on wedding kimonos as a sign of fidelity, depicting its dances and mannerisms in wood cuts and paintings, and telling stories with the crane as a central character. In Japan, home of the red-crowned crane, a very close relative of the whooper, cranes were once a common sight in daily life. Feudal law protected the crane, but when that protection lapsed in modern-day Japan, the red-crown faltered. Today it ranks among the rarest cranes in the world. Despite its rarity, the crane remains a central figure of Japanese culture. One folk tale tells the story of a subsistence hunter who happens upon a crane brought down by an arrow. Taking pity on the exquisite bird, the hunter removes the arrow and cleans the wound, releasing the bird back to the sky. The next day a beautiful woman arrives mysteriously at the hunter’s door and asks if she can stay and cook him dinner.

“Yes, but I have no food,” the hunter says.



“I have a bit of rice. That will be enough,” the woman replies.



This first dinner leads to another the next day and the next, until the woman

becomes the hunter’s wife. In order to supplement their meager existence, the woman asks the hunter to build her a weaving room. When it is ready, she says, “You must promise never to enter this room while I am weaving.” He agrees and she disappears behind the closed door for several days. When the woman emerges, she hands the hunter the most beautiful cloth he has ever laid eyes upon. She instructs him to take it to the market, where he exchanges the cloth for more money than he has ever possessed. The couple lives happily for a time, and when they are once again in need of money, the woman disappears into the room for several days. This time, the hunter cannot defeat his curiosity. He must know how she is able to weave such an amazing fabric with no thread. When he peeks inside the room he sees not his wife, but a beautiful white crane standing at the loom, braiding its own feathers into cloth. The next day when the woman emerges from the room holding the new cloth, she knows what the man has done and tells the hunter sadly, “I am the wounded bird that you saved those many years ago. I came to your house to repay your kindness to me, but you have seen my true form, and now I must leave.” She hands him the cloth, transforms back into a bird, and flies away, leaving the hunter bereft. Over the centuries since this story first took root, the crane became an emblem of health to Japanese people, and the custom arose of folding paper cranes as a prayer for wellness.

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This practice became known worldwide after the dropping of atomic bombs on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. A young girl named Sadako, who was dying from the lingering effects of radiation from the bombings, attempted to fold a thousand origami cranes in hopes of a miracle to save her life. Sadako died before she could finish her prayer, and ever since, she and the origami crane have come to be known as a plea for peace. Elsewhere in Asia the crane earned a similar reputation as a wise creature with connections to the heavens. One Chinese folk tale tells of the Lord of the Cranes, who flies out of the mountains on the back of a crane friend, then disguises himself as a beggar in order to seek out true kindness in the hearts of humans. What he finds is selfishness and greed, but he continues searching until he encounters an innkeeper who gladly feeds him day after day, wishing no reward other than the joy of his gift to the beggar. When the beggar-lord becomes convinced the innkeeper is a truly kind soul, he rewards him by setting a spell on the inn that causes the images of three cranes to dance upon the tavern walls. This oddity makes the innkeeper wealthy, as hordes of people rush to see the magical dancing cranes.

This story and others from throughout Asia show the crane as a connection to magic

and the spirit world. Legend held that Taoist sages rode to the spirit world on the backs of cranes, and cranes were seen as having the ability to connect people to loved ones lost or far away. The folkloric connection between cranes and the heavens likely stemmed from a real characteristic of the bird, based on observations that cranes descended from the sky after long disappearances. Some cranes in fact fly a mile or more above the earth’s surface when they migrate. An unscientific eye might easily imagine that these birds’ seasonal absence was due to a respite in the heights of the spirit world. And if a human being was looking for a ride to the upper atmosphere, better to employ a crane than a chicken. Not surprisingly, the graceful crane has also inspired traditional dances all over the world, from the Great Plains of North America to Greece and China. Homer describes a crane dance in the Iliad, which some suggest may have been one of the first dances that paired men and women. Is it possible that humans learned to dance from cranes? Having evolved millions of years before Homo sapiens, it is certain that cranes were dancing for millennia before humans were.

Cranes were also frequent characters in European lore. The bird, in this case a

Eurasian crane, was assigned similar characteristics to those attributed to cranes in other parts of the world—loyalty, cunning, and wisdom. Aesop’s fables employed cranes as teachers for other animals. In “The Peacock and the Crane,” a peacock spreads its colorful fan of feathers, strutting around and mocking the crane’s dull colorless cloak. To this the crane retorts, “Yes, but I can soar to the heavens, while you are stranded here like a cock among the birds of the dunghill.” ­Touché!

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Even Aristotle felt he had something to learn from cranes. He studied and wrote about their migrations in his History of Animals. And as the people of Europe followed the movements and characteristics of cranes, the bird became a part of the very words that have been handed down to today’s western cultures. For instance, the word “pedigree” comes from a French phrase, pied de grue, meaning “foot of a crane,” because the pedigree diagram looks similar to a crane’s foot. And the words cranberry, geranium, and congruence are all linguistically related to the word crane.

Closer to home, in the land of the whooping crane and the sandhill crane, native

peoples of North America made the crane a part of their art, religion, and culture as well. Ancient civilizations in the North American plains, the Great Lakes region, and southwestern deserts immortalized cranes in pottery art, cave paintings, and myths dating from centuries or even millennia ago.

Clans of certain tribes, like the Zuni, adopted animal personas to define the

characteristics of different groups. For the Zuni, the crane clan became associated with health and medicine and also shouldered the burden of guiding departed souls to the afterworld. This connection between death and cranes was also part of African American culture in the pre-Civil War era, where many held the belief that if a crane began to circle over a house, it foretold of a death in the household. The Navajo were so convinced of the crane’s link to health and life that their healing ceremonies included use of a medicine bundle made from a crane’s bill and organs, which would be employed in healing rituals. In Zuni myth, cranes also appear as protector of the tribe. When an angry corn goddess hides the tribe’s store of this staple food, it is the crane who reveals where the corn is hidden and saves the tribe. Observations of the crane’s watchfulness over its brood and flock led to many tribes adopting the crane as a guard and guide, not just over people, but over other animals as well. An Algonquin children’s story tells of an adventurous rabbit who wanted to go to the moon but found he could not jump high enough to get there. He considered all the animals, hoping to find one with the ability to fulfill his wish. Finally, he realized that he must appeal to the strong, soaring crane. The crane agreed to carry the rabbit and when they had reached the moon, the rabbit rewarded the crane with a shimmering red crown. In the Creek people’s tradition there was a story about the beginning of time in which the Master of Breath told the First Child that he could pick one animal to harbor the knowledge of healing plants. According to the legend, all animals were then as white as the whooping crane. And because they all wanted to be chosen by the First Child, they began coloring themselves with berries and mud and leaves. Green snakes, blue jays, and patterned raccoons all stood around the First Child hoping to be chosen. Only one animal ignored all the commotion and went about its business catching its dinner in the

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marsh. It was an all-white crane with black-tipped wings. The First Child chose the crane, because this wise hunter could be trusted to lead the people to the healing herbs. Heroes, gods, and magicians have nothing on the crane, which occupies the same honored place in global human mythology. In geographically disconnected cultures, from the American Southwest to Japan to Europe, consensus has reigned throughout human history that the crane is imbued with some divine essence—the stuff legends are made of.

Cranespeak When a crane preens a wing or lowers its head, or when its cap changes from brick to fiery red, it’s wise to pay attention. In the complex language of the whooping crane, dancing and other visual displays, body posture, the booming voice that gives it its name, and even the shade of its red crown can convey critical information to mates, offspring, and enemies. Bark, scream, roar, blink, whisper . . . Communication is a critical skill for all animals, from dogs to lightning bugs. Whether it be talking, gesturing, body language, or appearance, we all must find ways to communicate with the wider world in order to find mates, avoid violent confrontations, and teach our young the ways of the world. An ancient family of birds, the crane has honed its social language over many millennia to include precise usage of body language and vocalization.

Crane expert Paul A. Johnsgard once wrote that it is impossible to understand

crane society without an appreciation of their key vocalizations. Cranes use a variety of different calls, some of which are so powerfully loud that they can carry for a mile or more, even to human ears. Just as with humans, crane voices change as birds grow from chick to sub-adult to breeding adult. They may include baby-talk peeps that plead for food and comfort, the blaring whoop! that gave the species its name, and pre-flight calls that broadcast a crane’s intent to go airborne. Perhaps the most central call to crane life and survival is the unison call. This call is a precision-timed duet between members of a pair, where the male produces a long, low call while the female contributes two or three short, higher-pitched sounds. Far from mere vocalization, the unison call generally involves precise body postures, with the male extending his wings and the female keeping hers folded. Both cranes stand erect and alert, oriented precisely side by side or facing one another, almost more like a choreographed performance than a spontaneous utterance. The sequence of calls may last a few seconds or more than a minute. Often the pair will make their unison call when an intruder has strayed into their

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territory; they employ it to present a united front against disturbances to the domestic peace. It is the ultimate statement of territoriality. Crane researchers believe the unison call may serve several functions for crane pairs, including a means for creating and maintaining a bond that for most cranes will last a lifetime. It may also help synchronize a pair sexually, so that they are on the same wavelength as to the timing of reproductive activities. The call may also provide a sex-recognition device when pairs are being formed. (Male and female cranes are physically almost identical, and a vocal identification could spare two male cranes an awkward moment.)

Throughout their lives cranes employ a full suite of other calls for different purposes.

Amazingly, a crane chick utters its first communication before it has even hatched from the egg. It is hard to say what the call means, exactly, but whatever it is, the parents respond with increased attentiveness to the egg. Human caretakers in captive rearing programs can detect this prenatal call coming from eggs and use it as a guide for the timing of hatching. This “contact call” is used in various forms throughout a crane’s life to connect it to its parents, family, or social group. With legs that are only a fraction of the length of its parents’ and little experience in how to use them, a chick can easily get lost in the first forays out with the family. If lost, the chick can locate its parents by calling out and following the sound of its parents’ response.

“Location calls” are also helpful when adult cranes are separated visually from

one another, and perhaps when in visual contact but uncertain of who is who in a large group of cranes. Under this circumstance, the birds often call out to each other for voice identification and location. This can be especially useful during migration, when separations may occur, and cranes often carry on conversations while in flight.

To a human ear, crane vocalizations range from song to purr to groan to scream,

depending on whether the crane is bonding, alarmed, distressed, or otherwise.

Despite the importance of crane voices, perhaps equal in importance to crane

communication is body language. Physical displays are powerfully elemental to the nature of cranes, and scientists believe they are genetically wired into the birds. Even blind cranes raised their entire lives in captivity perform the full gamut of crane displays.

The lord of all crane displays is the dance. So elaborate and contagious is the

dancing of cranes that human beings around the world have imitated and immortalized crane dance for thousands of years. All cranes dance, and though different species incorporate unique elements in their dances, they also share similar components. The birds will often lower their heads and alternately raise their wings and then reverse, almost like a slow flight simulation with their heads bobbing conversely with their wings. From there, they bounce stiff-legged, spiraling about, and they may gather a twig or feather and toss it in the air. One of the earliest champions of whooping cranes, whose first-hand observations provided critical

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information on whoopers, Robert Porter Allen noted that the dance movements of cranes seemed to be contagious and at times involuntary, as if some combination of internal and external events compelled them to dance. Allen watched a male whooper who had been excited by a nearby group of ducks begin a series of dance moves; then a female, whom the male was dancing circles around, began to leap as well, and soon a younger crane joined in. Porter commented that their “emotions seemed to be set on a hair trigger.” Perhaps these floating movements are the manifestation of anxious crane energies and emotions. The truth is, most of the theory about crane dancing is somewhat speculative. Scientists believe dancing serves many purposes for cranes, from social to sexual to psychological. Dance is often associated with courtship, but it can occur at any age and season. For young cranes it may help with motor development, and when birds mature and mate, it may help strengthen pair bonds. Maybe dancing just helps the birds relax and let off steam. Dance may also serve as a benign channel for aggressive tendencies towards other cranes—so, in something like an avian West Side Story, they may use movement to sublimate energies that could otherwise lead to violent confrontations.

Sometimes birds perform the dance together as a pair, and sometimes they dance

solo or even as a whole group. Dance may lead to various outcomes, including flying, fighting, and pairing. But regardless of their practical or emotional purposes, to human eyes there is something indescribably beautiful and joyful in the dance of the whooping crane—this brilliant white bird as seemingly light as air cutting like an apparition through the myriad hues of marshland green. It appears to possess a freedom and abandon almost unknowable to the human mind.

Whooper movements in general are stately and fluid, with the precision and control

of a swordsman or karate master. But the meaning of those movements may be as menacing as a death threat in a barroom brawl. A crane expression of aggression can be as subtle as a bowed head that exposes a bare red crown. This crown, made of expandable skin, not feathers, which can change hues depending on the crane’s mood, forms another tool in the communication kit of a crane. Aggressive displays for cranes also may include strutting, stamping, growling, and hissing, along with the ruffling of feathers. Even preening can be a form of communication for cranes. If done in a display context, though ritual preening appears little different from normal grooming, this action can convey moods and statements to other cranes that are among their most important visual signals, according to Johnsgard. Without vocalization, the crane gets its meaning across by keeping its eyes trained on the object of its communication while preening its feathers and perhaps tilting its head slightly to better expose its red crown, just in case the onlooker did not catch the drift. All of these displays are meant to convey a crane’s moods and intentions and thereby avoid actual violence, which uses important energy and can end in

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injury or death. If subtle messages do not work, however, cranes will escalate their communication. One of the final postures before an attack is the crouch, when a crane lowers to the ground, with its wings slightly spread and its bill probing the ground. If an intruder does not heed this signal, the bird may charge, and possibly attack, spearing with its bill and slashing with sharp inner toenails. One of the most effective ways whooping cranes avoid confrontations over territory is the very color of their feathers. In open wetlands, even at great distances, whooper white is obvious to any observer: like posting a flashing light that says, “This patch of ground is occupied.” Researchers believe white cranes may have evolved as they did as a mechanism for staking out open marsh territory. Their loud call is also an important tool for defending territory. Cranes often call in unison at first light of day to establish their presence after being hidden by the dark night. In all their calls, movements, and colorations, cranes convey a system of communication both bold and nuanced, one that has developed over the many millions of years since they branched away from dinosaurs. Observing the interactions and intonations of the whooping crane has offered scientists a window into the minds of these birds—and an opportunity to understand and therefore help secure a future for them. For the casual admirer of whoopers, an understanding of what a ruffled feather may mean in cranespeak offers yet another element of nature at which to marvel.

In Wilderness and Wetland An aerial view of the winter and summer homes of the world’s only wild, self-sustaining whooping crane population readily provides a telling picture of why whoopers are so rare in the modern world. What one sees are the swirls, imperfect circles, and undulating lines that water etches in sweeping fluid strokes upon the face of land—the necessary features of the whooper’s home habitats. What one does not see much of are straight lines of asphalt, squares of concrete, and perfect circles of irrigated cropland—an environment where their lives cannot be sustained. Whoopers are birds of wilderness and fresh water. Millennia ago, they settled into a niche that fit them nicely, becoming specialists in the world of water’s edge: tailoring their hunting skills to the small creatures that were plentiful along coasts and shorelines, and locating their nests and establishing roosts where water would aid and protect them from predators. Their chosen niche minimized competition with the whooper’s North American cousin, the sandhill crane. The sandhill is believed to be an even older species of crane than the whooper—in fact, sandhills may be the oldest known species

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of bird still living in the world, and evidence dates their relatives to the Great Plains of this continent 10 million years ago. Since they were likely well established before the whooper, and since this gray crane’s numbers were always believed to be much greater than those of the whooping crane, the latecomer to the North American marshes and grasslands may have needed to settle into a slightly different routine than the sandhill. Prior to European migration of humans to North America, the landscape of much of the continent offered many suitable locations where the whooping crane could find food and land conditions to its liking. In rich coastal marshlands, the cranes found ample populations of their favorite foods, especially blue crab and mud shrimp, but also berries and certain types of marine worms, crayfish, fiddler crabs, and other crustaceans. And in the northern prairies and sub-Arctic regions, the birds found endless acres dotted with shimmering shallow pools and small ponds. In addition to food, an important component of whooping crane habitat is the existence of shallow roosting waters. While on land it is easy for stealthy predators to sneak up on them; in water, it is difficult for even the quietest bobcat or wolf to catch adult cranes unaware.

The whooper at one time ranged as far west as Utah, south to Central Mexico,

east to the Atlantic Ocean, and north to the Arctic. Whoopers spent their winters in wet plateaus of Mexico and the coastal marshlands from Texas to South Carolina, and most bred in the northern tallgrass prairie of the United States or the aspen parklands and sub-Arctic regions of Canada.

Some historic populations of whooping cranes found habitat that suited them all year

round, and they did not migrate at all. Those populations were likely centered around the coastal regions of the Gulf of Mexico, including one known non-migratory population in Louisiana that was the last to breed in the United States, but which was extirpated by the late 1940s, due to increasing human activity. In a world of disappearing wetlands, aquatic specialists face diminishing resources. Sandhill cranes, the most numerous crane species on earth, are more generalist when it comes to food and habitat. They also occupy grasslands and wetlands but will readily eat grains and other plant material—easy to come by, since agricultural development swept across North America. That same development, however, decimated all but a fraction of the wetland habitat that was essential to the whooper. Of all the crane species worldwide, those that depend on aquatic habitats are the most endangered.

That the whooping crane still exists today is because of several important factors,

perhaps none more critical than the parallel existence of Wood Buffalo National Park in northwestern Canada and Aransas National Wildlife Refuge on the Gulf Coast of Texas. These two protected wilderness and wetland areas lie several thousand miles apart. Until

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the 1950s, no one had discovered the invisible thread that connected them or realized that together they held the last hope in the world for the whooping crane. In 1941, the last viable population of wild whooping cranes was a flock of fifteen birds found wintering in the recently established Aransas refuge. At that time, the breeding grounds for the crane were not known and would not be found until the mid1950s. When the breeding grounds were located, they turned out to be within another already protected area, Wood Buffalo National Park, a wilderness of over 11 million acres in northern Alberta set aside to protect the wood bison. These two locations remain the homes for the world’s only wild, self-sustaining population of whoopers, which numbers today about 250 birds.

This precious migrating flock winters on the Gulf of Mexico at Aransas and on the

nearby barrier islands of San Jose and Matagorda, where the cranes are joined by over 400 other species of wintering or year-round birds, including pelicans, herons, egrets, roseate spoonbills, ducks, and geese. The land here is made up largely of freshwater and brackish marshes, oak woodlands, and thickets whose inhabitants also include alligator, javelinas, bobcats, wild hogs, and deer. Long ago this land was home to lion, bison, bear, and mammoth—along with native people, whose presence dated back to 6,000 BC. In more recent times, Karankawa Indians shared this space with whoopers. They were nomads who, like the whooping crane, moved with the seasons. Both the Karankawa and the whooping crane began disappearing with the arrival of European settlers, but unlike the cranes, the Karankawa did not survive the nineteenth century. Unwilling to retreat from the land and suffer the loss of their culture, the tribe was hunted and harassed until none were left.

Unable to fight for their land, the whooping crane retreated. All over the continent,

on every acre touched by the sweeping tide of human settlement, they retreated. The white crane of North America retreated right to the edge of extinction, and it would have fallen noiselessly into that abyss had twentieth-century America not made the surprising decision to relent, just a little, in order to make some space for the crane. In 1937, when the Karankawa were long gone and whooping cranes numbered fewer than two dozen on the Texas coast, President Franklin D. Roosevelt established the Aransas Migratory Waterfowl Refuge, which later became Aransas National Wildlife Refuge. The refuge was established for the general benefit of birds, “. . . for use as an inviolate sanctuary, or for any other management purpose, for migratory birds . . .” Practically speaking, Aransas became the last stronghold of the whooping crane in the United States.

Whoopers spend from November to March in Aransas before they take to the skies

and head north to breed. In the days preceding migration, groups will start to fly at higher

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altitudes and at times circle the sky at 1,000 feet. Eventually, groups of four to twelve cranes, with some solo flyers, adjust to daylight and weather and begin to head north.

The birds conserve energy for the long journey by ascending thousands of feet

above the earth where they ride thermal currents with minimal effort for many miles. Although most birds will only travel 200 miles each day in flights of about six hours, by harnessing the wind, some cranes can fly more than 500 miles in a single day at ground speeds of perhaps 50 mph. At altitudes of several thousand feet, whoopers can see landmarks from the sky that may help guide them on their route, an ancestral flyway they learn from their parents at the age of four or five months. Natural masters of the wind, cranes generally fly on days when a following wind will give them a lift. They avoid flying when headwinds or crosswinds would stymie efficient flight. Some cranes have been observed ending a day’s travel earlier than usual, apparently sensing the approach of inclement weather.

Migration is a long 2,500 miles, but whoopers rest along the way, including at

the Platte River Valley in Nebraska. The Platte is considered one of the most valuable ground locations of the cranes’ entire migration route. Here they can rest and feed in wet meadows, sloughs, and fields along the river and find safe places to sleep in the shallow waters of the river at night.

The nature of their stopovers has changed over the years as humans have altered

the land and the creatures living upon it. Gone are the bison, and therefore the bison wallows and the micro-ecosystems that developed around them. These wallows at one time supported amphibian life that in turn fed the whooping crane during migration. And the available land for migration stopovers has shrunk—today three-quarters of whooping crane stopovers occur in a corridor no more than eighty miles wide.

From the Platte, whoopers cross the central Dakotas, then travel northwest to

Saskatchewan, Alberta, and finally north to the vast wilderness of Wood Buffalo. That Canadian national park offers breeding whooping cranes undisturbed land with countless shallow ponds and small lakes set in a landscape of birches, willows, black spruce, and tamaracks. Somewhere among the ponds, bulrushes, and sedges teeming with minnows, insect larvae, and other invertebrates, whoopers build a stage for their brood, which they will dote on for the summer amid the clacking of rails and blackbirds. Wolves, bears, wolverines, red foxes, and lynxes hunt these fertile lands and are potential nest predators, but these hunters are rarely a threat to an adult whooper. In October, the whoopers and their four-month-old young take to the sky to return to Texas. They make an extended stopover in the Saskatchewan wilds, then push on to Aransas. By November, most whoopers will have reached the Texas coastal marshes, having traveled about 2,500 miles in a month’s time—an impressive feat, especially for

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the juvenile birds, whose rookie wings had first flown only months earlier. They and their parents will start a new year in the sheltered marsh refuge in the company of blue crabs and blackbirds, surrounded by quiet waters and the hopes of humankind.

Breeding From the objects and signs of whooping crane attraction to the routines, schedules, and displays of courtship and copulation. From picking and preparing the right nesting site to protecting and nurturing the precious chick (or chicks). All you really need to know about the sex lives of whoopers. For scientists, whooping crane reproduction can seem to be mere numbers and biology. Given the species’ dire population reality of around only 500 individuals worldwide, including captive and nonmigratory birds, and its shaky genetic situation—the total current population having been sired by no more than fifteen individuals remaining in 1941—analysis of censuses and genetics understandably preoccupies academic discussions of whooper breeding. Yet for most people these are creatures of dance, ritual, life-long fidelity, and tireless devotion to their young. Theirs is a story of romance, of nature’s cruel but critical connection to death as a factor of life, of being both prey and predator, of facing a world altered by human hands in a geological instant, and of continuing a journey of survival when all odds are aligned with extinction.

We will start with the chicken, though the egg would be just as good a place to

begin. Exactly what makes a whooping crane pair form is a mystery to crane experts. A simple formula can foretell genetic compatibility, but social compatibility—or why one whooping crane mates with another—remains an enigma. Whatever it is, in most situations, when whooping cranes in a pair know, they just know. And suddenly, there’s music in the air. Really. The first sign of a bond being formed often consists of a vocal duet, the unison call. Usually at the cue of a female, the couple begins a series of calls, each sex playing its own part, marking the beginning of a relationship that continues throughout the couple’s lifetime together.

While cranes are known for being lifelong partners, it is not unheard of for a crane

pair to split and new pairs to form. Generally this only happens with the death of a partner, but it can also happen if the cranes find they are simply not compatible. As researchers have observed, crane pairs exist in a balance, with the male being dominant, but not overly so, and the female being deferential, but not excessively submissive. If they find that their connection works, the pair will establish a territory where

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they dance and forage and whoop until it’s time to nest. That is when the real sexual pageantry begins. While dancing and unison calling are essential components of a couple’s relationship, helping to establish and maintain pair bonds, actual breeding is preceded by a different type of display. Generally, the male will start a march in the direction of the female—a parade march with his bill pointed to the sky, his feathers ruffled, and his red cap expanded so it glows brightly. If his mate is receptive, she lowers and flattens her body and lifts her wings slightly. After mating, the couple will engage in display activities, like ritualized preening, ruffling of feathers, and expansion of their red crowns. Different crane species have different post-copulatory rituals—for instance, in Japan cranes will perform extensive mutual bowing routines.

Whooping cranes do not reach sexual maturity until age three, and they may not

breed successfully until they are five or six. With a long lifespan, potentially up to thirty years in the wild, they can afford a delayed breeding age, assuming other survival pressures are not too great.

When it is time to breed, the couple begins to build a nest by gathering bulrush and

other wetland vegetation and piling it at the edge of a shallow pond or wetland. They may start nest construction together, or the male may start arranging nest materials a few days before the female. Whoopers instinctively want to nest, so much so that even if members of a pair are separated from each other in captivity, both partners may still build nests in preparation for a brood that will never come to be. Occasionally, even unmated wild birds will build nests that have no prospect of holding eggs.

For successful pairs, before long the nest will hold two smooth, beige eggs

with specks of brown and tan, measuring about four inches long. The color will help camouflage the eggs from the eyes of a nest predator, but whoopers do not rely on camouflage to safeguard their clutch. Once eggs have been laid and both parents begin taking turns incubating the eggs, neither will stray far from the nest or even sleep for very long during the month it takes for the chicks to develop inside their shells. During this time, they remain constantly alert for any dangers that may befall them or the precious vessels they have devoted their life’s energy to creating. Life is relatively simple for the family at this stage. But things begin to change a couple of days before the first chick hatches. At this time the parents begin to call to the unhatched chicks. As the sound pierces the silence of the isolated universe of the egg, the chicks will hear and respond. Not long after this initial contact, the first of the eggs will hatch. Whooper chicks grow so rapidly that although the older hatchling precedes the second by only a day or two, the relative difference in size and strength is significant. In the intense early stage of rearing, whooper parents cannot afford to coddle the younger, smaller chick. The larger chick will dominate food resources and sometimes actually pummel its younger sibling with its beak, leaving the smaller chick to weaken and often die.

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Even if the younger hatchling survives the first few days of competition, dangers abound in the early weeks of whooper life. Because the chicks accompany adults on foraging trips just days after they hatch, a weaker chick often cannot keep up; lost in a world inconceivably larger than the protective egg or nest, the younger sibling can easily be snatched by predators. Rarely, two chicks will survive from a single nest. But typically, crane parents lose 50 percent of their offspring annually. Not infrequently, crane parents will lose both of their young, for whom they will have traveled 5,000 miles roundtrip and to whom they have patiently devoted months of care. From the time they are born to the time they are fully adults, chicks face many dangers—from predators to injury to lack of food—which often lead to death. Crane expert Paul Johnsgard has estimated that no more than a third and perhaps only a quarter of wild whooping crane chicks survive from hatching to breeding age.

Despite the long odds, whooper parents persist, devoting three months to the

constant care of their chicks, from incubation to fledging. Once a chick hatches, parents begin to brood, preen, and feed the tottering sprite, which at this stage is all golden fuzz and brilliant blue eyes. In brooding, the female lifts her wing slightly and calls out to the chick while pointing her bill inside or preening the opening she has created to nestle and warm the hatchling. These tender interludes may continue for six weeks. During that span of time, parents must teach their young the most basic of life skills, including eating and drinking. To teach them to drink, a parent may spend hour upon hour dipping its bill into water, then offering it to the chick until the youngster learns that it, too, can dip its tiny beak into water. It’s a similar process with food—a parent may drop and pick up a morsel a dozen times before the chick understands and takes an active role in its own nourishment. If a chick survives these dangerous first few months, it will rapidly grow in height, especially its long legs. Once the youngster begins trotting around on these outsized stilts, people refer to them as colts, at this stage gangly in appearance and awkward in their exuberant ambling. As they grow from chick to juvenile bird, their plumage and eyes change. By the time they are three months old, their feathers have become a russet beige and their eyes have changed to aquamarine. Around this time, they will make their first short flights, and by the time they are four months old, young whoopers will be readying for departure on their first migration to the Gulf Coast of Texas. It is a mindboggling flight, but their parents are there both to teach them the route and to show them the most efficient way to travel, taking long stopover rests to aid the young flyers at the front end of the journey. Once they have arrived in Texas, juveniles settle in to their parents’ closely guarded territory of about five hundred acres of marshland. There they continue building their life

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skills and learning how to be a whooper until the next year’s breeding season begins and their parents sever ties with them. At about one year of age, having completed their first spring migration, they are on their own, but not alone. These adolescent cranes will flock with other nonbreeding cranes for safety and companionship while foraging and roosting, until at age two or three they begin trying out dance and duet partners, preparing to ignite the cycle anew.

Rise and Fall The world was a wilder place forty to sixty million years ago, when cranes evolved into their current forms, and since that time they have witnessed monumental changes. Fossil records suggest seventeen now-extinct species of crane once walked the marshes and grasslands of the world. These all died out, but fifteen others survive today on all continents except South America and Antarctica. All of these belong to the family Gruidae, which is divided into two subfamilies: Balearicinae and Gruinae.

Most of the crane species alive today are of the Gruinae lineage, and ten of those

fall under the genus Grus, which includes both North American cranes. A giant among birds, the whooping crane is the tallest in North America, a full foot taller than its gray cousin, the sandhill crane, which measures in at about four feet. The whooper sports a powerful bill that legend holds can kill a man with a single blow. Whether this has ever happened is questionable, but between cranes a stab of the bill can permanently settle a territorial dispute.

Despite their geographic overlap, the sandhill and the whooping crane are not as

closely related as the whooping crane is to other white cranes, like the Siberian, redcrowned, and black-necked cranes.

Today’s crane species survived on Earth as it morphed over geologic time. But

changes over thousands and millions of years offer a different challenge from the massive transformation that has happened over the mere decades and centuries since human population expanded across the planet. Human industry and machinery have allowed us to alter the land and the life upon it in what amounts to only a nanosecond of geologic time. Mountains that have stood for 10,000 years can be dynamited in a day. Climate patterns stable for thousands of years have been altered in half a century. And species that had thrived for millions of years have been cut down in decades, many without our awareness or intent. Advanced tools like guns made hunting so simple that humans could easily kill many more animals than we needed to survive. Hunting became an instrument of sport

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rather than survival, and cranes were easily caught in the crosshairs. Machines also allowed human population to expand beyond the bounds of natural resources and to permanently transform the very land we walked on. Wetlands that formed the foundation of food chains for thousands of species were drained and planted for the benefit of a single species, Homo sapiens.

Consequently, over the past century, many crane species have faltered. Eleven of the

fifteen species of crane alive today are considered to be threatened or endangered, and the wetland-dependent white cranes are the most endangered of all—none more so than the whooping crane, whose total population not long ago numbered twenty-one wild birds.

Scientists believe whoopers historically ranged throughout much of North America,

from the Arctic south to central Mexico. In the second half of the nineteenth century, Grus americana’s range began to shrivel. The strategies the whoopers developed to exploit their wetland niche crippled them in the world of Homo sapiens, and as the human population increased the whooping crane population declined. The whoopers’ large size and brilliant plumage made them easy targets for hunters, and the birds’ dependence on aquatic environments and prey made them vulnerable to the swift and wholesale destruction of wetlands.

These developments were disastrous when coupled with the whooping crane’s

slow breeding timeline. The whooper is a long-lived species, believed to live a quarter of a century in the wild and more than that in captivity. This long life afforded the species, under natural circumstances, the ability to maintain population over time, despite a delayed sexual maturity and low annual birth rate. The simple fact is that whoopers cannot rapidly replenish their numbers. As the birds’ habitable range and population shrank, so did their ability to replace population losses. By the mid-1800s, there were probably no more than 1,500 whooping cranes, a figure that plummeted rapidly as unregulated hunting, egg collection, and loss of habitat elevated mortality above birth rates. In 1939, the last whoopers that bred in the United States were congregated in a non-migratory flock in Louisiana. By 1950, whooping cranes no longer bred in the U.S. at all. Like many conservation issues, the severity of the situation was not really known until it was almost too late to save the species. Miscounting of whooping crane numbers exacerbated the problem. In the 1930s, some migration counts came to the conclusion that about 100 whooping cranes were alive. But those numbers relied on reports from people who most likely were mistaking sandhill cranes for whoopers.

Fortunately, by the time people realized that the whooper was in such jeopardy, the

U.S. government had established the refuge near Aransas Bay in Texas, protecting what was soon to be the only wintering site for whooping cranes in the world. In 1941, two populations of whoopers existed—an estimated fifteen birds in the Aransas population

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and a handful of non-migratory whooping cranes in an unprotected Louisiana marsh. By the end of that decade, however, all of the Louisiana cranes had disappeared, leaving the small Aransas flock responsible for the recovery of an entire species, an almost impossibly weighty burden. Many observers at the time believed the challenge was beyond reckoning or ­success. And they could well have been right. If not for one of the boldest wildlife recovery campaigns ever mounted, the sight and sound of the wild whooper would certainly have been erased from the wetlands of North America.

The battle to save Grus americana—a potent ambassador for all wildlife—helped

ignite a larger movement to protect the habitat and biodiversity of the world. In the United States the whooper provided a cautionary tale about what happens when human activity proceeds without thought to the consequences for the natural world—an insight that led to passage of some of the world’s first and most far-reaching wildlife protection laws.

Resurrection Bird A phoenix rising from ashes, the whooping crane not long ago was almost beyond salvation. The cast of characters involved in its survival has been large and unlikely, from conservationists to pilots to sandhill cranes. Their successes and failures form the story of one of the greatest wildlife conservation efforts the world has ever known. Extinction was fresh in the minds of Americans in the 1940s, when the critical situation of the whooping crane was becoming clear. The myth of inexhaustible plenty in North America was beginning to dissolve. From wolves and bears to bison and migratory birds, myriad species were reported to be teetering on the brink of population collapse. The whooper’s dire circumstances made it almost certain that it would follow the path of the passenger pigeon—so much so that premature death knells were sounded by some. Like many altruistic endeavors, the campaign to save the whooper required a leap of faith: the belief that if people just knew how incredible this bird was and how close it was to being wiped off the face of the planet forever, they would stop hunting it, stop stealing eggs from its nests, and start protecting its wetland habitats. Early whooper advocates could not employ the Endangered Species Act, which did not exist until the 1970s. It was therefore essential for whooper champions to appeal directly to all those whose actions affected the whooper—especially the farmers and hunters that lived in the corridor of its migratory flyway. Human perception needed to be altered, from viewing the whooping crane as a prized trophy bird or agricultural pest to seeing it as the last of a precious species unique in all the world. And it had to be done quickly, because

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there were so few left alive. In order to accomplish this, wildlife agencies in the U.S. and Canada and crane advocates in organizations like the National Audubon Society worked throughout the known migration route to establish a safe space in the skies and on the ground for the migrating whooper.

But there was another important element to contend with. Though the whoopers’

wintering grounds at Aransas had already been afforded some protection, initially the crane’s breeding grounds were unknown, which meant that for six months of the year the world’s last flock of whooping cranes passed out of all sight, knowledge, and protection. For more than a decade, researchers and whooping crane supporters tried to find the breeding grounds in hopes of protecting this crucial element of the whooper’s life cycle. Then, in 1954, on a flight over Wood Buffalo National Park in Alberta, Canada, an observer happened across a whooping crane pair with one offspring. Whooping crane advocates greeted this discovery with immeasurable relief—both because the mystery had been solved and because it turned out that this crucial piece of whooper habitat was already protected. With a safe haven in both its breeding and wintering grounds, the whooper at this point needed only two things: adequate protection through its migration route in order to stabilize the population, and outreach campaigns with hunters to gain adherence to the 1916 Migratory Bird Treaty Act.

By 1970, the one wild flock of whoopers was beginning to show signs of recovery.

Gradually, a slow arc of progress developed that has continued through the intervening decades. By the 1990s, the numbers had risen to over 100, and by the dawn of the new millennium there were more than 150 wild whoopers. Yet people working to save the cranes knew that this would not be enough to ensure their escape from extinction. As long as all of the species’ eggs were in one geographical basket, the whooping crane was vulnerable to a single catastrophic event wiping out the entire wild population. Disease, hurricanes, and toxic contamination of wintering grounds were all real threats, and the species would never be safe as long as the Aransas­­–Wood Buffalo birds were the sole population. Recovery efforts had to broaden into the establishment of a second self-sustaining flock.

The first attempt at this goal occurred in 1975, when scientists began to enlist

sandhill cranes as foster parents for whooping crane eggs. Crane experts hoped that, because sandhills and whoopers shared many characteristics, the more numerous sandhill could assist in the recovery of whoopers. The project required whooper eggs taken from nests in Wood Buffalo National Park to be transported to Gray’s Lake National Wildlife Refuge in Idaho, there to be deposited in sandhill crane nests. Because whoopers generally are only able to raise one chick, it was believed that the conservation gains from collecting one egg from each nest would outweigh the nest intrusion. The project proceeded with the hope that the sandhills would raise the whoopers as their

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own and teach them all the life skills necessary for survival. And to a large extent, they did. The whooper chicks were adopted by sandhill parents and raised to the age of fledging, then taught an 800-mile migration route between Grays Lake and Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge in New Mexico. Along the way there were setbacks—like whoopers colliding with power lines because they could not maneuver as quickly as their mentors, the smaller and more agile sandhill cranes. But of about 300 eggs placed in sandhill nests, 85 whoopers learned to migrate. The program was a success aside from one fatal flaw: whoopers learned to sexually associate with sandhills rather than other whoopers. Lacking a mirror, they saw their sandhill foster parents as their own kind and failed to develop any attraction to other white cranes. In only one instance did a male whooping crane mate with a sandhill and produce a “whoophill” hybrid. This result was duplicated at the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center in Maryland where a “whoophill” that is still alive today was produced using the technique of artificial insemination. Due to the breeding bust, the fostering program ended in 1989, when it seemed clear that the flock would never be self-sustaining. The whoopers in this western flock died out gradually until none were left.

With the failure of this project, whooping crane recovery reverted to the critical job

of establishing a second wild population in case catastrophe befell the Aransas-Wood Buffalo flock.

Faced with the as-yet insurmountable challenge of reintroducing a migratory

species without parental guidance to the routine of traveling more than two thousand miles twice a year, the recovery team decided to investigate the possibility of establishing a non-migratory flock of whoopers. In 1990, Florida’s Kissimmee Prairie, a marshland in the state’s palmetto scrub, was selected for the first reintroduction of whooping cranes in eastern North America. Scientists employed cousin sandhills to test the methods they would use for raising and releasing the whoopers. Then in February 1993, a small flock of whooping cranes raised in captivity with minimal human contact was released. The project continued with annual releases until by 2005, 289 whooping cranes had been returned to the Florida marshland. In many ways this endeavor was a success. Cranes raised by humans did learn to live on their own in the wild, and they did adjust to being a stationary flock. Most importantly, though breeding success was not spectacular, the reintroduced cranes did form normal whooping crane pair bonds. The first member of the second generation of this flock fledged in 2002. This whooper, named Lucky by researchers, was not only the first offspring of the non-migratory flock, but the very first whooping crane ever to be produced by captive-reared, wild-released parents—a major victory. Yet the project suffered from some realities that were beyond its control. Young and inexperienced whooping cranes, without the guidance of their parents, are easy prey

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for the stealthy bobcat. On top of that, the whoopers had to contend with a prolonged drought, the longest in a century in central Florida. Without sufficient water to roost in at night, the whooping cranes became even easier prey. Ultimately, mortality from predators, chiefly the bobcat, created an insurmountable obstacle for this project, which was discontinued in 2008.

Fortunately, other recovery efforts were proceeding simultaneously as momentum

began to build for one of the boldest of all the campaigns to save the whooping crane.

Conservation Frontiers To anyone who had not been closely following avian research in the 1990s, the news that scientists were trying to teach birds to follow airplanes may have raised a few skeptical eyebrows. But by the mid-1990s, several pioneering individuals had already proven that red-tailed hawks, sandhill cranes, and Canada geese would follow aircraft if trained to do so. And not only would they shadow a plane on a fall migration route, but they would also take it upon themselves in the following spring to navigate successfully the route back to their starting location. The news could not have come at a better time for whooping cranes and their advocates. As the new millennium approached, the Aransas-Wood Buffalo flock of whooping cranes had grown to 150 birds, but recovery efforts for the species had not yet managed to establish a second wild, self-sustaining flock. Neither using sandhill cranes as adoptive parents nor raising whoopers for strategic release into a nonmigratory flock had proved successful. But now the early experiments on geese and sandhills gave hope to crane advocates that the method could be used to help reestablish migrating populations of whooping cranes. In order to test the theory further, the United States Geological Survey’s Patuxent Research Center in Maryland began a series of experiments in 1995 with sandhill cranes. Over the ensuing years, the center, together with a group of scientists and pilots, tried several methods of human-led migration with sandhills. One method employed ground vehicles rather than airplanes. A truck led ten sandhill crane colts on a 400-mile route from northern Arizona to the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge at the Arizona-Mexico border. This method worked insofar as the sandhills followed the truck. But because the birds had to fly low to follow the truck the trip resulted in many fatal collisions with power lines as well as attacks by golden eagles. The simultaneous airplane-led migrations from Idaho to New Mexico achieved greater margins of success. In 1997, after several years of work with sandhills behind them, it was time to try the method with a small group of

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whoopers. To the team’s relief and excitement, that assisted migration worked, and the following spring the whoopers returned to their natal area without human assistance.

Buoyed by these successes, in 1999 a coalition of federal and state agencies

and nonprofits formed the Whooping Crane Eastern Partnership to return migratory whooping cranes to the eastern U.S. The group—which included Operation Migration, the International Crane Foundation, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, USGS, and several state departments of natural resources—determined that ultralight aircraft flown by costumed pilots would lead young whooper chicks from a fledging site at Necedah National Wildlife Refuge in central Wisconsin to a vast salt marsh at Chassahowitzka National Wildlife Refuge on the Gulf Coast of Florida. The goal was to reintroduce the birds to the flyway, with hopes for a migratory flock containing at least twenty-five adult breeding pairs by 2020. In 2001, pilot and artist William Lishman led the first flight of whoopers from Wisconsin to Florida. On that first migration, one bird was killed when it flew into a power line after escaping from its travel pen during a storm, and two were lost to bobcat predation on the Florida wintering site. The rest survived and successfully migrated back to Wisconsin in April 2002.

The whooping crane facility at Patuxent raises eighteen to thirty chicks for release

each year. Just before they are ready to fly, the young whoopers are put on a private jet and flown to Wisconsin. There the ultralight leads them on their very first fledging flights as practice for the 1,200 mile migration to Florida.

Ultralight aircraft are the only planes that can fly slowly enough for birds to follow—

as slow as thirty miles per hour—and in this sense they make the perfect surrogate migration leader. But whoopers naturally fly incredibly high while migrating, up to several thousand feet, where they can ride on thermal currents. This way they can travel several hundred miles in a day and make the full migration in a week or so. But the ultralight cannot soar and instead travels in a straight line. This type of flying requires more energy of the birds, because they are on the wing the whole time rather than gliding with the currents. The whole migration takes a lot longer, but it works. The young cranes actually take advantage of the wind vortices coming off the airplane wings and are often able to glide with reduced expenditure of energy in formation behind the ultralight. Once the group arrives at the Chassahowitzka refuge on the Gulf coast of Florida, the young whoopers are taken to pens and gradually oriented into the wild. The following spring, they will get up one morning and, on their own, return to Wisconsin. This time, because they know the route taught to them by the ultralight, they can fly in the manner of cranes: high above the earth and effortlessly.

Between the first human-led migrations in 2001 and the most recent migration

in 2009, the eastern migratory flock has grown to about 100 birds. The program has

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attained yet another important milestone in whooping crane recovery, though the final measure of success for the eastern migratory population has eluded the recovery team. This flock, like all the other reintroduced flocks, has not been able to breed successfully. Only one Wisconsin whooper in almost a decade has fledged from reintroduced parents—not nearly enough for the flock to become self-sustaining.

Still, the presence of this second migratory flock opens new doors for recovery of

the whooper. It allows researchers to try methods of reintroduction that were impossible before and which may work better for whoopers. One of the newest techniques is called direct autumn release, which entails releasing young, captive-reared cranes into the eastern flock prior to migration, and counting on older whoopers in the flock and wild sandhill cranes to teach them further life skills, including migration.

Without a second self-sustaining flock, the Aransas-Wood Buffalo flock holds the

fate of the species by a fragile thread. Unfortunately, drought and other factors may already be taking a toll in Aransas. In the winter of 2009, a record 23 birds died, at least some of them due to a shortage of their staple foods, the blue crab and wolfberry. And threats loom on all horizons. From a single catastrophic storm, to an oil spill in the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway, to increased water use and habitat loss from rapidly developing human populations, the Aransas cranes remain vulnerable. Whoopers cannot bear any additional habitat loss in their wintering, migration, and breeding range if a full recovery is ever to be attained—yet available habitat is shrinking daily due to massive development of wind farms and increased production of corn to make ethanol. And if the ongoing sea level rise continues as forecast, much of the current coastal whooping crane marshland at Aransas will be submerged too deeply for the cranes to use.

Whooping crane recovery has come so far over the past sixty years, and there has

been much cause for celebration. But major puzzles remain to be solved, and significant challenges loom for whoopers and their champions. The next half-century will require even more persistence from the crane and from all who cannot countenance a world without the whooper.

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Preserving Our Future with the Whooping Crane The life of the whooping crane, dancing over the marshes and soaring through the skies of North America, cannot fail to inspire admiration and even envy. These birds evoke memories of a wild continent, a time before humans, when mammoths, lions, and giant sloths populated unadulterated wilderness of inconceivable biological richness. Human beings may never be able to return to nature as it was then. But our desire to save species like the whooping crane from extinction suggests a drive to save ourselves from the fate of a world without wildness and perhaps a will to return some of the natural wonder of the world to our own lives. For the love of this bird and all it represents, a heroic band of humans has labored to enter its mind, emulate its body, and take on the role of its parents. No step seems too bold in the battle to save our race from the prospect of an earth without the whooping crane. In the process of working to save this admirable creature, we have also saved space for thousands of other plants and animals, as well as for ourselves.

But the battle is not won. One catastrophe could destroy the wild whooping crane,

leaving us with captive and non-breeding wild flocks that could dwindle to nothing. The whooper would then become a species that our children could visit only in a zoo and never see soaring in the wild. Truly recovering the whooping crane will take a collective will to deal with complex problems: the effects of global warming, human population growth, continued loss of habitat, and the impacts of energy initiatives such as wind power. If we want whoopers to inspire future generations as they have since the dawn of human culture, we will have to practice the wisdom that we have ascribed to cranes themselves for these many millennia.

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Aransas National Wildlife Refuge,Texas

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Marshes & Wetlands The open marshes of Aransas National Wildlife Refuge are the wintering home of the whooping crane. Here on Texas’ central Gulf Coast, each of the established pairs or families of whooping cranes reoccupies the same territory every year. Their favorite foods here, wolfberry and blue crab, provide essential energy reserves for the following spring’s migration north.

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Meadows & Wilds Some of the crane families not only use the marshes but can also be found in upland fields and meadows, where they share the land with sandhill cranes, white-tailed deer, and feral hogs.

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Competition In their uplands habitat, some cranes become accustomed to deer feeders. They do their best to claim these feeders as part of their territory, resolutely defending them against competitors such as black-bellied whistling-ducks, white-tailed deer, sandhill cranes, and even squirrels. This leads to encounters that range from amusing to quite serious, resulting in occasional injuries.

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Midday Break On warm, calm days, the crane family takes a break at a dry, bare place in the marsh, slightly elevated for better observation of potential threats. Here they seem to feel completely safe. Adult whoopers relax, down on their heels, or sit down completely. Sometimes they even close their eyes and take a quick nap. Their offspring playfully seek their ­attention, and after further preening and dancing they leave again for feeding in the marsh.

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Peaceful Night As late afternoon turns to evening, whooping cranes fly toward one of their preferred sleeping places. They look for shallow water where they feel relatively safe against bobcats, foxes, and other predators. Once there, even juvenile whoopers know to chase off the smaller competing waders. As long as there is light, the cranes are still active— walking around, sometimes running and dancing, frequently preening. When darkness finally arrives, they bury their heads in their plumage (sometimes in astonishing poses) and fall asleep.



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Wood Buffalo National Park, Canada

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Remote Haven In the summer of 1954 a Canadian bush pilot discovered the breeding territory of the migrating population of whooping cranes in Wood Buffalo National Park, the second largest national park in the world. Wood Buffalo was created in 1922 to protect the native bison population as well as the park’s stunning landscape and salt plains habitat. Some wetlands in the very north of Wood Buffalo contain countless ponds that provide the perfect breeding environment for whoopers. Arriving from Aransas in April, paired cranes start building their nests amidst the bulrush vegetation.

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Breeding Responsibilities Nesting is a serious but usually uneventful task. Both parents share the duties of incubating (usually) two eggs, but when hatching day draws close it is almost exclusively the female who is on the nest. Only once in a while does she stand up, roll the eggs, and stretch. The male, however, is always around, mostly standing alert on its guarding post, where it can overlook the entire nesting site. From time to time the male communicates with his partner using low, snarling sounds. She reacts excitedly on the nest, raising her feathers in display. But then, the routine resumes.

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Day by Day At daybreak, the female sits faithfully on the nest and the male is still at his place of repose. The female will only allow the male to approach the nest and take over incubation in the early morning hours. She is now hungry and leaves the nest for a while to look for food. Returning to the nest, she quickly takes over incubation again. The male has nothing more to do for the day other than standing guard, feeding, preening, stretching, and sometimes swimming. (Whooping cranes do swim for short distances if the water gets too deep for ­wading.)

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Early One Morning Every morning in the Wood Buffalo habitat dawns with a different mood. On this day the fog rises; the light is soft. As usual, the male has taken over nesting duties for a while, and the female is ready to leave in search of food. Finally, the sun makes its way through the fog and the boreal splendor is flooded with warm light.

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A Chick Emerges Clear signs appear when the day of hatching draws close. The male comes often to the nest with food in his beak, and the female stands up more frequently. Even after the chick has hatched, the female sits down and stands up, again and again. Both parents take turns collecting food in the near surroundings of the nest, one of them always nearby, never leaving the chick alone. A fat beetle is still too big for the chick to ingest. Small, soft spiders work best as food in the early phase. As the chick becomes stronger and more agile, it walks around the nest and its immediate surroundings. The parents will occasionally leave it, but they never wander so far that they cannot return to the nest at once. There is also still a second egg, not yet hatched.

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Comes a Raven In the early morning of the day after the first chick has hatched, the family is still together at the nest, and the second egg is still being incubated. At noon, however, the parents and the first chick have moved nearly a hundred meters away from the nest, leaving the second egg alone. Suddenly, a raven appears at the nest. Within seconds of landing there, the hungry raven sees its chance, pecks at the egg, and pulls out a leg of the second chick. By this time, the parent whoopers notice what has happened and raise the alarm. Rushing frantically back to the nest, the male arrives to the rescue, too late. Using the leg as a handle, the raven leaps into the air. Helplessly, the parent picks up the empty shell of the first chick, flaps its wings, and finally returns to its remaining family. By evening, the adult pair has built another small nest a hundred meters away from the old site, where the lone chick is kept warm and dry under mother’s wing for the night.

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Aransas Again

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Twins in Tow Most whooping crane pairs return to Aransas with only one offspring, or even none at all. A family with two surviving young is something very special. In early winter the juveniles are almost completely orange. Slowly they shed their youthful coloration and by the following spring, like their parents, they will be predominantly white.

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Learning Boundaries Immature whooping cranes roam in small groups. Because all the prime feeding grounds in Aransas are already occupied and defended by established crane families, these immature birds must learn to cope with aggression and threatening gesture. Established pairs with their young can very often be seen parading and calling to each other. The parents assert their dominant presence to intruders. Their offspring master the body language and calls that signal flight and every other aspect of their lives.

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The Evening Hour This season, the family’s preferred pond for sleeping at night has dried up. Nevertheless, they go there each evening to feed, preen, dance, and trumpet their distinctive territorial call. Before darkness falls, they fly out into the marsh to settle in to the nightly security of shallow water.

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Where to View Whoopers

Seeing whooping cranes in person is not as difficult as it once

but you can sometimes see them without the aid of scopes or

was. One of the easiest places to get an up-close glimpse of the

binoculars as they forage streamside or in marshy fields.

whooper is at the International Crane Foundation in Baraboo,



Wisconsin. The ICF, a major contributor to whooper recovery, has

inaccessible at Wood Buffalo National Park. But from November

members of all fifteen of the world’s crane species at their crane

through March, you may visit Aransas National Wildlife Refuge in

facility, and at the center of it all is a wetland amphi­theater where

Texas to catch a glimpse of the world’s only self-sustaining wild

you can sit and watch a whooper pair preening and foraging in a

population of whooping cranes. Ascend the forty-foot observation

natural setting, a near-mystical experience for “craniacs.”

tower and try to spot whoopers in Mustang Lake, foraging through



the daylight hours.

To see this spectacular bird in the wild, you can visit Necedah

Breeding and nesting whoopers are closely protected and

National Wildlife Refuge, only about an hour away from ICF in



For most, the best way to get a close look at the whooping

Wisconsin. There are several locations, which refuge staff will gladly

cranes at Aransas is to take a tour boat out of nearby Rockport.

point out to you, where in the late spring and summer months

The boat trips, which guarantee sightings of whoopers or your

you can often spot whoopers of the eastern introduced migratory

money back, can be found through the Rockport Chamber of

population. The refuge has spotting scopes on observation towers,

Commerce (http://www.rockport-fulton.org).

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The Photographer’s Craft

Imagine six days of nothing but bread, chocolate, and ­oranges, sitting in a swamp on a square of plywood, surrounded by the drone of mosquitoes, sheltered only by a camouflaged cloth tent so small you have to sleep sitting up, with little protection from the beating rain and howling wind and temperatures that oscillate between freezing cold and stifling heat. All this to get unique photos of a whooping crane chick, moments after its birth in the forested wilds of Canada. Taking photographs of wild whooping cranes, or any rare species, can present tremendous challenges along with great rewards. Photographer Klaus Nigge experienced both in abundance while capturing the photos within the pages of this book.

Klaus first came to this project with two decades of

experience photographing the Eurasian crane, a much shyer species. The whooping crane, because of its highly protected status, low population, and isolated nesting grounds, posed

habitat was difficult enough. Yet perhaps the greatest challenge in

different and greater obstacles and tribulations.

taking photos of the full life cycle of the whooper in the wild was



gaining permission and access in the first place to the breeding

Even with all his patience, fortitude, and highly developed

skills, capturing the dynamic images of whoopers in their Texas

grounds in Canada’s Wood ­Buffalo National Park, on the border between northern Alberta and the Northwest Territories. Because the whooper remains so vulnerable to extinction, those charged with the species’ recovery are supremely protective of the birds’ habitat and privacy, particularly at its nesting sites. In order to take photos of whoopers on the nest, Klaus had to appeal to Canadian wildlife officials for permission, which had never before been granted to a professional still photographer.

With the backing of National Geographic magazine, in whose

pages a few of the photographs in this book first appeared (see the June 2010 issue), Klaus obtained the necessary clearances, and he and Brian Johns of the Canadian Wildlife Service assessed the roughly sixty-five whooper nest sites there to determine which would work best for the project. The right nest needed to

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be accessible by helicopter yet be relatively distant from other whooper nests to ensure that the fewest number of birds would be disturbed. Johns required Klaus to be accompanied by both a ranger and an incubator, so that if despite all their efforts the whoopers were stressed enough to abandon their nest, the eggs could be saved and rushed to a care facility.

When all was arranged, Klaus and the ranger flew to the site

and set up the base camp, which was located about a kilometer away from the nest. From there, they carried the plywood that would form the base of Klaus’ camouflaged tent into the nest area. They talked and sang as they approached so that the cranes would hear them coming and have ample time to leave the nest. After the platform and tent were placed, the ranger left—still talking and singing aloud—hoping the cranes would think that any

ever seen. All this, combined with the quiet of the wilderness,

human threat had vacated the area. Meanwhile, Klaus was now

evoked for Klaus a sense of meditation and simplicity—living the

ensconced inside the tent about fifty meters from the nest, where

life of these birds and emptying the mind of all else.

he would remain until the eggs hatched and chicks appeared.





were always active, Klaus noticed that the male had begun to

Within a mere fifteen minutes, the birds returned to the area

After about three days in the blind, during which the cranes

and Klaus was ready to start work. From time to time, he would

bring food to the nest. This was a sign that a chick would soon

talk in a low voice to the cranes. They knew they were not alone,

hatch. And sure enough, the next morning, out came the first of

but they soon realized that the new noises were not a threat

the clutch of two chicks. Klaus could not see the actual hatching,

to them. For the next few days, Klaus lived in much the same

but he knew by the activity of the parents what was happening.

circumstances as the whoopers did and worked to capture life as

Within about an hour, when the chick was strong enough to

it unfolded for all of them. When night came, he was enveloped by

stand, it popped its head above the nest vegetation and Klaus

the same deep wild darkness as the whoopers. When the cranes

photographed the fluffy golden ­hatchling.

went to sleep, so did Klaus—although perhaps less comfortably in



his sitting position. And when the wind rose or the rain came, he

the dark, still tent, with his only view of the outside world through

felt the same discomfort as the whooping cranes.

his camera lenses, that Klaus was finally able to stand, stretch



his legs, feel the fresh air, and see the wild land from horizon to

Using a Nikon D3 and D300 with 200- to 800-millimeter

It was only later, after six days and six nights crumpled in

telephoto lenses, Klaus captured all that he saw. He minimized

horizon, now with the satisfaction of knowing he had captured for

all normal human activity, from eating and drinking to standing,

the world a moment of exceeding rarity in the hatching of a wild

sleeping, and talking. Instead, he listened and observed the

newborn whooper.

unfolding of a scene in nature that few others in the world have

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Further Reading

Books and Articles

McCoy, J. J. The Hunt for the Whooping Cranes. Paul S. Eriksson, 1966.

Allen, Robert Porter. The Whooping Crane. Research Report No. 3 of the National Audubon Society. National Audubon Society, 1952. Butcher, Russell D. America’s National Wildlife Refuges. Roberts

Price, Alice Lindsay. Cranes: The Noblest Flyers. La Alameda Press, 2001. Riley, Laura and William Riley. Guide to the National Wildlife Refuges. Macmillan, 1979.

Rinehart Publishers, 2003. Doughty, Robin W. Return of the Whooping Crane. University of Texas Press, 1989.

Internet resources

Dunlap, Thomas R. “Organization and Wildlife Preservation: The Case of the Whooping Crane in North America.” Social Studies

International Crane Foundation:

of Science 21 (1991), 197–221.

http://www.savingcranes.org/whoopingcrane.html

Ellis, David H., editor. Proceedings of the Eighth North American

Whooping Crane Eastern Partnership:

Crane Workshop. January 11–14, 2000, Albuquerque, N.M.

http://www.bringbackthecranes.org/

North American Crane Working Group, 2001.

Whooping Crane Journey North:

Ellis, David H., George F. Gee, Claire M. Mirande, editors. Cranes:

http://www.learner.org/jnorth/crane/

Their Biology, Husbandry, and Conservation. Department of the

Operation Migration:

Interior, National Biological Service, Washington, D.C., and the

http://www.operationmigration.org/

International Crane Foundation, Baraboo, Wis., 1996.

United States Geological Service:

Ellis, David H., William J. L. Sladen, William A. Lishman, Kent R.

http://whoopers.usgs.gov/

Clegg, Joseph W. Duff, George F. Gee and James C. Lewis.

http://www.npwrc.usgs.gov/resource/birds/cranes/

“Motorized Migrations: The Future of Mere ­Fantasy.” Bioscience

grusamer.htm

Vol. 53 No. 3. American Institute of Biological Sciences, March

Aransas population:

2003.

http://www.birdrockport.com/whooping_cranes.htm

Johnsgard, Paul A. Crane Music: A Natural History of American Cranes. Bison Books. University of Nebraska Press, 1998. Matthiessen, Peter. The Birds of Heaven. North Point Press, 2001.

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Acknowledgments

Many individuals have provided invaluable assistance throughout

Birch Howard guided me through bureaucratic hurdles, organized

the process that has resulted in this book.

the necessary permissions from Parks Canada, and helped me to arrange all the logistics that a project like this requires. He also went

Tom Stehn, refuge biologist and whooping crane coordinator at

with me into the birds’ nesting area, stayed in our base camp, and

the Aransas/Matagorda Island National Wildlife Refuge Complex,

maintained radio contact with me throughout my stay there.

gave me my first comprehensive overview of the whooping crane population and the perennial challenges they face. He informed

I owe special thanks to Brian Johns, the whooping crane

me where I should go and whom I should consult.

coordinator of the Canadian Wildlife Service. We had precious talks that perfectly prepared me for my days in the field. He also

Diane and Al Johnson generously allowed me unlimited access

scouted and selected appropriate nests, base camp sites, and

to their ranch on the Lamar Peninsula, adjacent to the Aransas

ideal locations for my blind.

National Wildlife Refuge. There I was able to observe and photograph all of the daily life experiences of a resident crane

Overall, I offer my sincere thanks to Parks Canada for giving me

couple and their chick(s) for several weeks in two winters.

permission to photograph their crown jewels.

I will never forget Wayne Nugent from The Habitat in Lamar for his

In the course of this work, I was fortunate to meet Krista Schlyer, a

hospitality and help, even in difficult situations. In Canada, Clayton

nature journalist who shares my love for cranes and whose writing

Burke provided me comfortable lodging and relaxation in his

in the introduction of this book provides solid textual background

Thebacha Bed & Breakfast in Fort Smith.

to the emotive visual images that follow.

I thank my friend Jacques van Pelt from Fort Smith, Northwest

Last but certainly not least, I would like to thank Kathy Moran,

Territories, who was instrumental in introducing me to the many

senior editor for natural history at National Geographic. I originally

people I had to know to photograph the whooping cranes in their

planned this project as a story for NG. Without her constant

protected breeding grounds at Wood Buffalo National Park.

support, neither that article nor its culmination in this book would ever have come about.

Stuart McMillan, manager of resource conservation at Wood Buffalo, and his staff supported my project goals in every respect.



—Klaus Nigge

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