My 2024 year of birding closed on a happy yet sad note. I got to photograph an endangered Whooping Crane in Osceola County on New Year’s Eve.
These cranes are among the largest birds in North America. “Weighing 15 pounds, the Whooping Crane has a wingspan of more than 7 feet and is as tall as many humans, reaching a height of around 5 feet,” Cornell’s AllAboutBirds.org website notes.
They are also among the rarest birds on our continent. In the 1940s there were only 21 Whooping Cranes left in North America. Thanks to efforts to save the species, there are between 600-700 today (160 are in captivity; the rest are in the wild).
This adult one I saw in Osceola could be part of a program that tried to re-introduce them into Florida that ran from 1993 to 2004.
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission said that biologists released 289 captive-raised whooping cranes into Central Florida during the program. But it wasn’t very successful – only 31 remained as of 2008, the FWC said in a news release then.
“Scientists decided to stop releasing cranes into the non-migratory flock for a variety of reasons, including problems with survival and reproduction, both of which have been complicated by drought,” the FWC said. “Additional considerations included shorter-than expected life spans, scarcity of birds for release, project costs and the loss of habitat from development. The team felt that project resources and birds produced in captivity could be better used for other whooping crane releases as well as to maintain the captive flock.”
I was able to get the ID number on this Whooping Crane’s band, and I reported it to the International Crane Foundation. Hopefully they can supply more information about this bird and learn more about it.
While I was elated to see and photograph the Whooping Crane, here’s the really sad part of this story.
This Whooping Crane is alone. A birder who has been observing it said it spends its time with two Sandhill Cranes. It’s also in an area where a subdivision is currently under construction, so it will soon be losing its habitat, too.
I’m really thankful I got to see this bird while it’s still around, and I hope it finds a mate so it can try to keep its species going.
