Picture of Whooping Crane flying
Unique to North America, whooping cranes (“Grus americana”) stand about five feet tall, have sinewy necks, long legs, and a wing span of about seven-and-a-half feet. Their snow-white bodies are contrasted by jet-black wing tips and a red-and-black head.
Found in marshy areas with bulrushes and cattails, “whoopers” feed on crabs, frogs, and other small aquatic animals, but seldom eat fish. The cranes once nested from Illinois to southern Canada. In the winter, they migrated to an area between the Carolinas and Mexico.
This animal has a loud resonant call, given both during flight and on the ground. Cranes often migrate in large flocks in winter and fly great distances at high altitudes. They eat mainly vegetable matter, though they will also eat animals.
The whooping cranes’ dance ceremony, often done before mating, is particularly spectacular. The birds prance around with their heads and necks bent far forward and wings half-spread. They leap high into the air, letting out the whooping sound.
The whooping crane was once placed on the endangered species list, but its numbers have slowly risen after people made the effort to protect it. In 1975, the eggs of whooping cranes were placed in the nests of sandhill cranes at this Idaho refuge. The sandhills, thinking the eggs their own, reared the whooping crane chicks. This subterfuge was an attempt by the U.S. Wildlife Service to keep the whooping cranes from becoming extinct.
Today the whooping crane is listed as an endangered species, with about 155 of the birds existing in America’s wilds. Intensive education and research programs give promise of further increases in the crane population.