Whooping Crane Group Visits La. Sites

By RICHARD BURGESS

LAFAYETTE – The endangered whooping crane may alight again in south Louisiana, once home to the last breeding colony of the birds in the United States.

Scientists and conservationists involved in crane preservation efforts across North America met in Lafayette this week to discuss projects to save one the world’s rarest birds.

The group chose the south Louisiana location to get a close look at sites being considered for reintroduction of whooping cranes: White Lake and Marsh Island, two state-managed marsh areas in Vermilion Parish.

The group toured White Lake on Wednesday and was scheduled to tour Marsh Island today.

As of Friday afternoon, the joint Canadian-U.S. team that leads crane recovery efforts had yet to discuss the possibility of a Louisiana project.

If the group chose to consider Louisiana for a reintroduction site, at least three to five years of careful environmental studies would be required before any final decision would be made, said Tom Stehn, whooping crane coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

A strong Louisiana contingent has made its presence known at meetings throughout the week in an effort to influence a decision.

The most-vocal proponent has been Mary Lynch Courville, whose father, naturalist John J. Lynch, documented one of the few remaining colonies of whooping cranes in the 1930s in White Lake.

The colony is also believed to have been the last breeding colony in the U.S., meaning that the birds lived year round in the south Louisiana marsh, instead of migrating north to Canada.

“Eventually, I’d love to see those beautiful creatures back in White Lake,” said Courville, secretary of the Whooping Crane Conservation Association. “We know the habitat is there. We could re- create history.”

The number of whooping cranes in the U.S. fell to fewer than 20 birds in Texas in the 1940s, a decline blamed on habitat loss and hunting.

Early preservation efforts focused on the Texas colony, and this winter the number of birds rose to a record 237, Stehn said.

Scientists are also working to establish a flock in Florida by using ultralight aircraft to lead the birds south for the winter.

Stehn said the total number of captive and noncaptive cranes had climbed to about 516 this winter – the first time the numbers have risen above 500 since preservation work began – but about 18 birds were killed in the violent storms that hit Florida this week.

Louisiana was under consideration in the 1990s for a crane re- introduction program but was passed over in favor of Florida.

Louisiana Wildlife Federation Director Randy Lanctot said he hopes the opportunity does not slip away again.

The conservation group passed a resolution in 1999 supporting reintroduction of whooping cranes to the state.

“We need to get the cranes back here,” Lanctot said.

Courville said a colony of the rare birds in Louisiana could be a huge tourism draw, with birders traveling from across the country to see the rare cranes, which stand up to 5 feet high and have a 7- foot wing span.

Courville said the introduction of the whooping crane will not create hassles for landowners because the birds will be considered experimental and not treated under the law as an endangered species.

And waterfowl hunters who frequent south Louisiana marshes are not likely to shoot the massive birds by mistake because whooping cranes are several times larger than the ducks and geese hunted here.

“We want to show we can do conservation and hunting,” Courville said.

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