As I was about to say ….. There are 549 Whooping Cranes in the world at the moment, and maybe 64 more. The latter is the number of chicks hatched this spring from a record 66 nests in Wood Buffalo National Park in northern Saskatchewan, where the western flock breeds. These birds will be added to the population total if and when they migrate successfully to their winter home in Aransas National Wildlife Refuge in Texas. This flock is estimated at 266 birds, not counting the chicks, estimated because the cranes nest in scattered and remote locations. There are 33 cranes in a non-migratory flock in Florida, and 100 in the migratory flock that summers in central Wisconsin and winters in Florida. The latter includes 28 chicks that are being raised at Necedah National Wildlife Refuge near Tomah for release this fall. There are 150 cranes in captivity at zoos or research facilities in Maryland, Wisconsin, Texas, Louisiana, Florida, and Alberta, Canada. This information comes from Bob Russell, biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 23rd, 2008 at 3:45 pm and is filed under Bird conservation, Bird migration. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.