You are here: Home > Environment > Top News

Whooping cranes come back to Louisiana after 60 yrs

: 0 Comments Print E-mail Xinhua, February 17, 2011

Adjust font size:

Whooping cranes are to be reintroduced to Louisiana more than half a century after the endangered birds were last seen in the state.

Whooping cranes [File photo]

Now a new regulation designating a potential Louisiana's population as a non-essential, experimental population under the Endangered Species Act, the way is clear to reintroduce the cranes later this month.

'The whooping crane is an iconic species that should be returned and restored to health along the Gulf Coast,' the Secretary of the Interior, Ken Salazar, said. 'We believe we are ready to bring whoopers back. The reintroduction of these remarkable birds will be a milestone moment for the Gulf Coast and in our continuing commitment to the protection and restoration of America's great outdoors.'

The last record of a whooping crane in Louisiana dates back to 1950, when the last surviving whooping crane was removed from Vermilion Parish property that is now part of Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries' White Lake Wetlands Conservation Area.

The reintroduction of the whooping crane was the model of the kind of partnership in conservation called for by President Obama when he unveiled his America's Great Outdoors Initiative, said Salazar. 'Working with states and local communities to achieve our conservation goals is at the heart of the America's Great Outdoors Initiative,' Salazar said.

Louisiana's reintroduction is part of a larger ongoing recovery effort led by the US Fish and Wildlife Service and its partners for this highly imperiled species, which was on the verge of extinction in the 1940s and even today has only about 400 individuals in the wild.

'The return of whooping cranes to their home in Louisiana, after an absence of more than a half-century, salutes the values of a state that shelters some of the largest and most important wetlands on the continent,' said George Archibald, co-founder of the International Crane Foundation (ICF).

The only self-sustaining wild population of whooping cranes migrates Wood Buffalo National Park in the Northwest Territories of Canada and Aransas National Wildlife Refuge in Texas. Like those in the eastern migratory population, it remains vulnerable to extinction from continued loss of habitat or natural or man-made catastrophes.

Multiple efforts are underway to reduce this risk and bring this magnificent bird further along its path to recovery. This includes increasing populations in the wild, ongoing efforts to establish a migratory population in the eastern United States, and establishing a resident population in Louisiana.