whooping crane

The whooping crane (Grus americana) is an endangered crane species, native to North America, named for its "whooping" calls. Along with the sandhill crane (Antigone canadensis), it is one of only two crane species native to North America, and it is also the tallest North American bird species, with an estimated 22–30+ year life expectancy in the wild. After being pushed to the brink of extinction by unregulated hunting and loss of habitat that left just 21 wild (and two captive) cranes by 1941, the whooping crane made a partial recovery through conservation efforts. The total number of cranes in the surviving migratory population, plus three reintroduced flocks and in-captivity, is just over 830 birds as of 2025. This includes about 560 individuals in the remnant population that migrates between coastal Texas, USA, and the Northwest Territories, Canada, which is termed the "Aransas-Wood Buffalo...

At one time, the range for the whooping crane extended throughout midwestern North America as well as southward to Mexico. By the mid-20th century, the muskeg of the taiga in Wood Buffalo National Park, Alberta and Northwest Territories, Canada, and the surrounding area had become the last remnant of the former nesting habitat of the Whooping Crane Summer Range. However, with the recent Whooping Crane Eastern Partnership Reintroduction Project, whooping cranes nested naturally for the first time in 100 years in the Necedah National Wildlife Refuge in central Wisconsin, United States, and these have subsequently expanded their summer range in Wisconsin and surrounding states, while reintroduced experimental non-migratory populations have nested in Florida and Louisiana. However, the reintroduction in Florida has been halted and is considered a failure as a result of high adult mortality, low juvenile recruitment, and high rates of habitat loss Whooping cranes nest on the ground, usually on a raised area in a marsh. The female lays 1 or 2 eggs, usually in late-April to mid-May. The blotchy, olive-coloured eggs average 2½ inches in breadth and 4 inches in length (60 by 100 mm), and weigh about 6.7 ounces (190 g). The incubation period is 29–31 days. Both parents brood the young, although the female is more likely to directly tend to the young. Usually no more than one young bird survives in a season. The parents often feed the young for 6–8 months after birth and the terminus of the offspring-parent relationship occurs after about 1 year. Breeding populations winter along the Gulf coast of Texas, United States, near Rockport on the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge and along Sunset Lake in Portland, Matagorda Island, Isla San Jose, and portions of the Lamar Peninsula and Welder Point, which is on the east side of San Antonio Bay. The Salt Plains National Wildlife Refuge in Oklahoma is a major migratory stopover for the crane population, hosting 60-75% of the species annually. As many as nine whooping cranes were observed at various times on Granger Lake in Central Texas in the 2011/2012 winter season. Drought conditions in 2011 exposed much of the lake bed, creating ample feeding grounds for these cranes just as they were taking their autumn migration through Texas.

At one time, the range for the whooping crane extended throughout midwestern North America as well as southward to Mexico. By the mid-20th century, the muskeg of the taiga in Wood Buffalo National Park, Alberta and Northwest Territories, Canada, and the surrounding area had become the last remnant of the former nesting habitat of the Whooping Crane Summer Range. However, with the recent Whooping Crane Eastern Partnership Reintroduction Project, whooping cranes nested naturally for the first time in 100 years in the Necedah National Wildlife Refuge in central Wisconsin, United States, and these have subsequently expanded their summer range in Wisconsin and surrounding states, while reintroduced experimental non-migratory populations have nested in Florida and Louisiana. However, the reintroduction in Florida has been halted and is considered a failure as a result of high adult mortality, low juvenile recruitment, and high rates of habitat loss Whooping cranes nest on the ground, usually on a raised area in a marsh. The female lays 1 or 2 eggs, usually in late-April to mid-May. The blotchy, olive-coloured eggs average 2½ inches in breadth and 4 inches in length (60 by 100 mm), and weigh about 6.7 ounces (190 g). The incubation period is 29–31 days. Both parents brood the young, although the female is more likely to directly tend to the young. Usually no more than one young bird survives in a season. The parents often feed the young for 6–8 months after birth and the terminus of the offspring-parent relationship occurs after about 1 year. Breeding populations winter along the Gulf coast of Texas, United States, near Rockport on the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge and along Sunset Lake in Portland, Matagorda Island, Isla San Jose, and portions of the Lamar Peninsula and Welder Point, which is on the east side of San Antonio Bay. The Salt Plains National Wildlife Refuge in Oklahoma is a major migratory stopover for the crane population, hosting 60-75% of the species annually. As many as nine whooping cranes were observed at various times on Granger Lake in Central Texas in the 2011/2012 winter season. Drought conditions in 2011 exposed much of the lake bed, creating ample feeding grounds for these cranes just as they were taking their autumn migration through Texas.

These birds forage while walking in shallow water or in fields, sometimes probing with their bills. They are omnivorous but tend to be more inclined to animal material than most other cranes. Only the red-crowned crane may have a more carnivorous diet among living cranes. In their Texas wintering grounds, this species feeds on various crustaceans, mollusks, grasshoppers, fish (such as eel), small reptiles (such as snakes), mice, voles, aquatic plants, acorns and fruits (such as wolfberry [Lycium carolinianum]). Potential foods of breeding birds in summer include frogs, snakes, small rodents, small birds, fish (such as minnows), aquatic insects, crayfish, clams, snails, aquatic tubers, and berries. Six studies from 1946 to 2005 have reported that blue crabs (Callinectes sapidus) are a significant food source for whooping cranes wintering at Aransas National Wildlife Refuge, constituting up to 90 percent of their energy intake in two winters; 1992–93 and 1993–94. Waste grain, including wheat, barley, and corn, is an important food for migrating whooping cranes, but they do not swallow gizzard stones; they digest grain less efficiently than sandhill cranes.

Their calls are loud and can carry several kilometers. They express "guard calls", apparently to warn their partner about any potential danger. A crane pair jointly calls rhythmically ("unison call") after waking in the early morning, after courtship, and when defending their territory. The first unison call ever recorded in the wild was taken in the whooping cranes' wintering area of the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge during December 1999.

The whooping crane was formally described in 1758 by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae. He placed it with the herons and cranes in the genus Ardea and coined the binomial name Ardea america. Linnaeus based his description on the accounts of two English naturalists. In 1729–1732 Mark Catesby had described and illustrated the whooping crane in his The Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands, and in 1750 George Edwards had described and illustrated the crane using a preserved specimen that had been brought to London from the Hudson Bay area of northeast Canada by James Isham, an employee of the Hudson's Bay Company. Linnaeus specified the type locality as North America but this has been restricted to the Hudson Bay. The whooping crane is now one of eight species placed in the genus Grus that was introduced in 1760 by the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson. There are no recognised subspecies. An adult whooping crane is white with a red crown and a long, dark, pointed bill. However, immature whooping cranes are cinnamon brown. While in flight, their long necks are kept straight and their long dark legs trail behind. Adult whooping cranes' black wing tips are visible during flight.

Their many potential nest and brood predators include the American black bear, wolverine, gray wolf, cougar, red fox, Canada lynx, bald eagle, and common raven. Golden eagles have killed some young whooping cranes and fledglings. Due to their large size, adult birds in the wild have few predators. However, American alligators have taken a few whooping cranes in Florida, and the bobcat has killed many captive-raised whooping cranes in Florida and Texas. In Florida, bobcats have caused the great majority of natural mortalities among whooping cranes, including several ambushed adults and the first chick documented to be born in the wild in 60 years. Adult cranes can usually deter or avoid attacks by medium-sized predators such as coyotes when aware of a predator's presence, but the captive-raised cranes haven't learned to roost in deep water, which makes them vulnerable to ambush. As they are less experienced, juvenile cranes may be notably more vulnerable to ambushes by bobcats. Patuxent Wildlife Research Center scientists believe that this is due to an overpopulation of bobcats caused by the absence or decrease in larger predators (the endangered Florida panther and the extirpated red wolf) that formerly preyed on bobcats. At least 12 bobcats have been trapped and relocated in an attempt to save the cranes. In Florida, whooping cranes may be eaten by some growth stage of invasive snakes such as Burmese pythons, reticulated pythons, Southern African rock pythons, Central African rock pythons, boa constrictors, yellow anacondas, Bolivian anacondas, dark-spotted anacondas, and green anacondas.

Whooping cranes are believed to have been naturally rare, and major population declines caused by habitat destruction and overhunting led them to become critically endangered. Even with hunting bans, illegal hunting has continued in spite of potential substantial financial penalties and possible prison time. The population went from an estimated 10,000+ birds before the settling of Europeans on the continent to 1,300-1,400 birds by 1870. By 1938 there were just 15 adults in a single migratory flock, plus about thirteen additional birds living in a non-migratory population in Louisiana, but the latter were scattered by a 1940 hurricane that killed half of them, while the survivors never again reproduced in the wild. In the early 1960s, Robert Porter Allen, an ornithologist with the National Audubon Society, appeared as a guest challenger on the network television show To Tell The Truth, which gave the Conservation movement some opportunity to update the public on their efforts to save the whooping crane from extinction. His initial efforts focused on public education, particularly among farmers and hunters. Beginning in 1961, the Whooping Crane Conservation Association (WCCA), was established to improve the status of the whooping cranes. This non-profit organization functioned largely by influencing federal, state and provincial political decisions and educating the general public about the critical status of the bird. The whooping crane was declared endangered in 1967. Allen had begun an effort at captive breeding with a female crane named 'Josephine', the sole survivor of the Louisiana population, injured and taken into captivity in 1940, and two successive injured birds from the migratory population, 'Pete' and 'Crip', at the Audubon Zoo and the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge. Josephine and Crip produced the first whooping crane born in captivity in 1950, but this chick only lived four days, and though decades of further efforts produced more than 50 eggs before Josephine's death in 1965, only four chicks survived to adulthood and none of them bred. At the same time, the wild population was not thriving. In spite of the efforts of conservationists, hunting bans, and educational programs, the aging wild population would gain only 10 birds in the first 25 years of monitoring, with entire years passing without a single new juvenile joining those that returned to the Texas wintering grounds. This led to a renewed tension between those who favored efforts to preserve the wild population and others seeing a captive breeding program as the only hope for whooping crane survival, even though it must depend on individuals withdrawn from the extremely-vulnerable wild population. Identification of the location of the summer breeding grounds of the whooping cranes at Wood Buffalo National Park in 1954 allowed more detailed study of their reproductive habits in the wild, and led to the observation that while many breeding pairs laid two eggs, rearing efforts seemed to favor a single chick, and both chicks would almost never survive to fledge. It was concluded that the removal of a single egg from a two-egg clutch should still leave a single hatchling most likely to survive, while providing an individual for captive breeding. Such removals in alternating years showed no decline in the reproductive success of the wild cranes. The withdrawn eggs were transferred to the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center in Maryland, where approaches for hatching and rearing crane chicks in captivity had already been optimized using the more-numerous sandhill cranes. Initial challenges getting the resultant birds to reproduce, even using artificial insemination approaches, would give impetus to the first, unsuccessful attempt at reintroduction, by swapping whooping crane eggs into the nests of the more numerous sandhill cranes as a way to establish a backup population. In 1976, with the wild population numbering only 60 birds and having increased at an aver…

The whooping crane was formally described in 1758 by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae. He placed it with the herons and cranes in the genus Ardea and coined the binomial name Ardea america. Linnaeus based his description on the accounts of two English naturalists. In 1729–1732 Mark Catesby had described and illustrated the whooping crane in his The Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands, and in 1750 George Edwards had described and illustrated the crane using a preserved specimen that had been brought to London from the Hudson Bay area of northeast Canada by James Isham, an employee of the Hudson's Bay Company. Linnaeus specified the type locality as North America but this has been restricted to the Hudson Bay. The whooping crane is now one of eight species placed in the genus Grus that was introduced in 1760 by the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson. There are no recognised subspecies.