North America’s tallest bird passes through the northeastern corner of Montana in its migration between its breeding grounds in Canada and its winter habitat in Texas.
According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, human development drove whooping crane numbers down from thousands to just over a dozen birds by the 1940s. A bird count the Fish and Wildlife Service released in late June shows North America’s only wild population of whooping cranes recently topped 550 individuals for the first time since then.
That means hundreds of whooping cranes now migrate to their wintering grounds on the coast of Texas in the fall and travel back to northcentral Canada in the spring. The snowy-white bird with its red-capped head and black tipped wings is as tall as a human at nearly 5 feet, with a seven-foot wing span.
The state is on the edge of its flyway across the Great Plains.
“As those grasslands are being converted to crops, we’re also losing wetlands that are critical for water fowl and other wetland birds such as cranes,” said Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks waterfowl biologist Faye McNew.
The bird is one of six animals the state is watching as an endangered species of interest.
McNew said younger birds learn how to migrate from older generations, and so having those older birds is critical to maintaining a self-sustaining population like the one that winters in Texas.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service calls the bird count “encouraging” and says the results indicate a steady expansion of both the wild whooping crane population and its winter habitat in Texas.
