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A Bird in the Hand

Whooping Cranes are finicky creatures, requiring large swaths of land for their habitat—between 125 to 500 acres of land per pair, which they fiercely defend, year after year. While these birds are protected within the borders of Aransas National Wildlife Refuge and surrounding areas, they can run into trouble when they wander outside of these confines.

But these whoopers, as they’re fondly called, have intrepid advocates on their side: from government organizations in both Canada and the U.S., the federal protections that accompany their endangered status, to conservation organizations like the International Crane Foundation (ICF) and National Audubon Society, and passionate individuals. The shield of their power, while not impenetrable, has kept the cranes from crossing the brink to extinction.

Dr. Elizabeth “Liz” Smith is one part of that shield. As senior Whooping Crane scientist and director of the Texas program for the International Crane Foundation, she knows just how diligent you have to be to keep the future of this species on a positive trajectory.

“The crane conservation community, that includes agencies and NGOs, work together to try to educate hunters so they don’t accidentally shoot a Whooping Crane,” Liz said. “For those that are just vandal shooters, that are just shooting because they don’t respect life, we are trying to make sure that they are getting a stiff sentence and that they are getting prosecuted to show that we don’t tolerate that.”

Last year, when two Whooping Cranes from a reintroduced population in Louisiana were found shot and killed in eastern Texas, the environmental community sprang into action. Local farmers provided statements to help the Texas game wardens and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service special agents track down the 18-year-old perpetrator, Trey Frederick, and hunters came forward to fill in the details of the maliciousness of the crime.

Liz spoke with Frederick during his arraignment, hoping to gain some insight into his actions and help guide him in better understanding his errors.

“He really did try to seem remorseful, but there were so many things that he did leading up to that crime, that he lied to me about,” Liz said during our interview in May. “He was very convincing. I told him to plead guilty and we would see what we could do about helping him straighten up his life. He admitted that he did it, but said that he wasn’t going to plead guilty because he might be able to get out of it. That was kind of it for me.”

Under the Endangered Species Act, the maximum criminal penalties for knowingly bringing danger or death to an endangered animal are fines of up to $100,000 and a year of jail time. In practice, however, perpetrators have received anywhere from $1 to $85,000 in fines, rarely serving any time.

Knowing this, Liz  to the judge and district attorney of the case urging them to apply the harshest sentence, explaining the time, effort, and money that is poured into rearing each and every crane.

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The shooter did not just kill two birds. The shooter stole the deep monetary investment of governments and nonprofit organizations in Canada and the United States. The shooter endangered the very existence of this struggling species.

— Dr. Liz Smith

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When the ruling was delivered, Liz was pleased. Frederick was ordered to pay almost $26,000 in restitution, serve 200 hours of community service, and was sentenced to five years of probation, during which his hunting and fishing licenses were revoked in all fifty states and he couldn’t own a firearm.

“He’s young. We are hoping that he can change,” Liz said. “Time will tell if he will turn his life around. We will see.”

So far, this young man hasn’t made much progress. In July of this year, he was sentenced to 11 months in federal prison after a confidential informant told officials that Frederick had participated in hunting feral hogs from a public road and committed acts of animal cruelty. (For the gruesome details, read Sonia Smith’s piece for .)

The severity and seriousness with which this was handled points to positive signs for Whooping Crane populations, and while there is still a ways to go, Liz is hopeful.

“Eventually, we would like to see them all across the southern United States and flying and nesting in different places, just like they used to,” she said.

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Hope is the Thing with Feathers

At one time, Whooping Crane populations were estimated to have totaled around 10,000. But by 1941, only 15 cranes remained in the migratory population, their numbers decimated due to over-hunting and habitat loss. And since then, it’s been a long and slow road to recovery for this species. In order to downlist the cranes from endangered to vulnerable, their numbers will need to reach a population size of 1,000. Currently, there are around 650. Not an impossible goal to achieve, but it will take time, and substantial conservation effort.

CBS’s “Sunday Morning” gives a glimpse into Aransas National Wildlife Refuge.

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At the very tippy-top of Alberta, in Canada’s Wood Buffalo National Park, Whooping Cranes make their nests, pulling vegetation together in the middle of shallow water areas, which makes it easier to see and hear any potential approaching predators. They typically lay between one to three eggs in a season, and after a month of incubation, the chicks hatch and must learn survival skills fairly quickly. Usually, only one chick survives—infanticide is common. In just a few months, it will be time to begin the journey south.

Beginning in December, fluffy white dots mark the marshy landscape of Texas’s Gulf Coast. The cranes have arrived to find a mate, and to eat all of the blue crabs and wolfberries they can find for the next four to five months. And this is where I find them, spying through my binoculars as I monitor their behavior.

I’m accompanied by nine other citizen scientists as part of an �������� crew working with aquatic ecosystem ecologist Dr. Jeffrey Wozniak and avian ecologist Lindsey Tiegs. As one person holds the timer, another records the activity, and the others have their eyes on the birds, calling out the behaviors they see.

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“Foraging!” “Alert!” “Comfort!” “Resting!” “Locomotion!”

Why is it important to record the behaviors of these birds? By monitoring the cranes, we can get a sense of their habitat. If the birds spend much of their time walking around the marsh in search of food, you can surmise the habitat might not be overflowing with resources. If the birds spend their time foraging, resting or “comforting” (preening and cleaning themselves), food must abound. If the birds are alert—necks straight and taught with their beaks parallel to the ground—they might sense some kind of danger or perceived threat, perhaps caused by a passing airplane or boat, or another crane encroaching on their territory.

We view the birds from 300 yards away, and when they aren’t in their territory, we sneak in to assess the area. We trudge through the muck and mud of the marsh, marking out transects, counting wolf berries and blue crabs, and measuring water salinity.

Aside from providing crucial habitat data, we’re also helping to create a more complete picture, Jeff said. “We don’t always have every piece of the puzzle, so that’s the drive for us to keep coming back. It’s important to understand how this system works, how we as humans impact it, and how we can mitigate those impacts.”

And with the 10 pairs of extra hands �������� volunteers provide for the week I’m there, we’re helping Jeff and Lindsey collect the data they need, but at a much quicker pace.

“�������� is enabling us to hit more sites, to have more time on the marsh, to collect more data, to observe more birds. It’s maximizing our efforts,” Jeff said. “We can’t put that puzzle together if we don’t have the data, and �������� is enabling us to do that.”

While we were only there for a week, adding our findings to a much larger collection of data, I couldn’t help but feel like I was being woven into the conservation story of the Whooping Crane—a story that I hope has many chapters ahead...and, even more importantly, a happy ending.

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