The World's Last Flock of Wild Whooping Cranes Gets More Living Space
On an isolated stretch of Texas coastline, conservation groups have acquired more than 3,000 acres of nearly pristine prairie to preserve as habitat for endangered whooping cranes, one of the rarest birds in North America.
Groups this month announced the $8 million purchase of two tracts in rural Calhoun County, halfway between Houston and Corpus Christi, among the last substantial pockets of unplowed acreage along the Texas coast and the winter grounds for the world’s last wild flock of whooping cranes.
“Large, intact coastal landscapes are disappearing fast, and protecting this one is a major win,” said Julie Shackelford, Texas state director at The Conservation Fund, which bought the 2,200-acre Costa Grande Ranch. Less than five percent of Texas’ native coastal prairie remains, she said.
The purchase of another, 1,100-acre coastal property by the International Crane Foundation marked that groups’ first such land acquisition since it was founded in 1973 to nurse the dwindling whooping crane population back from the brink of extinction.
Five-feet-tall, monogamous and known for elaborate dances, barely two dozen of these birds remained a century ago. Now almost 600 make up the last wild flock that still makes its ancient, annual migration between the Canadian taiga and the middle Gulf Coast of Texas, where only a smattering of protected areas offer them reliable habitat.
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/19122025/the-worlds-last-flock-of-wild-whooping-cranes-gets-more-living-space/