John K. Flores: Whooping crane numbers headed in right direction

In 1939, when John J. Lynch flew over the southwest Louisiana marshes, very near to where White Lake Conservation Area is today, the United States Bureau of Biological Survey biologist counted 13 whooping cranes. By 1949, only one crane remained on the landscape.

Captured in 1950, the lone bird was transported to Aransas National Wildlife Refuge just north of Corpus Christi, Texas, where it was released with hopes it would join the last migratory whooping crane population in North America.

Fast forwarding to 2011, once again whooping cranes would grace Louisiana’s coastline when 10 juvenile cranes were released on the State’s White Lake Conservation Area. The joint Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries and United States Fish and Wildlife Service project to reintroduce the endangered birds would be considered a non-essential experimental population.

The non-essential designation by the LDWF/USF&WS definition meant that the survival of whooping crane, as a species, would not be reduced if the entire reintroduced population was lost. The non-essential identifier also allowed some flexibility when working with landowners as the whooping crane population expanded its range beyond the conservation area where released.

It’s been over a decade since that initial reintroduction, where this past week I found myself parked along a roadside south of Gueydan in Vermilion Parish. In a harvested rice field were 18 majestic whooping cranes feeding and preening in the stubble, with a few mixed up in some kind of kerfuffle fighting and chasing one another.

Whooping cranes are the tallest North American bird, standing approximately 5 feet tall with a wingspan that measures 7 to 8 feet. Adult whooping cranes are snow white with black wing tip primary feathers. On top of its head from the base of its bill to its jaw is a red rose coloration that glistens like a ruby in the morning light. To observe them in the wild is literally something special.

The LDWF/USF&WS goals for the Louisiana’s whooping cranes is to eventually establish a self-sustaining population of 125 individuals with at least 30 productive pairs and maintain that population for 10 years without restocking. Currently, the Louisiana population stands at 87.

Science isn’t measured in leaps and bounds. Most of the time it’s a slow arduous process with various setbacks along the way.

Besides disease and predators, causes of whooping crane mortality also include collisions with fences and power lines and sometimes humans. Unfortunately, early in the reintroduction process, 12 whooping cranes were indiscriminately shot. But, according to LDWF Wildlife Technician Eva Szyszkoski, currently there’s a more troublesome problem biologists are trying to work through, where the cranes are concerned.

Szyszkoski said, “Obviously the shootings played a roll, because whenever we lose a bird, especially to a senseless shooting act like poaching, it definitely hurts the prospects of the future and the number of breeding pairs that you have. But since breeding started, we have noticed an issue with egg embryo mortality.

“It’s something we’re trying to look into to try to figure out what’s going on,” Szyszkoski continued. “Do the adults have something that they’re passing to the eggs and then the embryos just died during incubation, because they can’t fight off whatever it is. Or is something coming from the outside and getting into the egg somehow and killing embryos?”

Szyszkoski says the issue with embryo mortality is probably the biggest thing that’s holding back the population. Yet, despite the issue with egg embryos, 2022 was the best nesting year so far for Louisiana’s whooping cranes.

“So last year we had 15 chicks hatch and 8 made it to fledging. So, that was over 50 percent survival to the fledging point, which is really good for whooping cranes,” Szyszkoski said.

Sadly, two of the six chicks that fledged last summer have disappeared says Szyszkoski. The chicks were seen with their parents multiple times up until early fall. Thereafter, the adult birds were seen without them, which Szyszkoski considers an odd time for them to be separated.

Louisiana’s whooping crane nesting season is just around the corner, typically starting in February.

Szyszkoski said, “In general, whooping cranes pair for life and the same pair will just stay together the whole year and nest year after year. Typically, by the middle of February we’ll have pairs on the nest.

One year our earliest nest was February second.”

Because of the egg mortality issue, Szyszkoski says the nesting season tends to run long. If a pair is unsuccessful the first time, there is plenty of time to renest.

Szyszkoski also mentioned two years ago was their longest nesting year when they had a chick hatch on July 4.

Ever so slowly Louisiana’s whooping crane populations continue to make gains, where the birds seem to be headed in the right direction.

Szyszkoski said, “Generally headed in the right direction. Definitely we’ve made some progress.”

John Flores is the Morgan City Review’s outdoor writer. He can be contacted at gowiththeflo@cox.net