As more Texans ‘Give a Whoop,’ hope for saving iconic cranes – and coast

CORPUS CHRISTI, TEXAS—Whooping cranes are, in many ways, a lot like us.

They mate for life. They maintain small, close-knit families. They go through a few years of aloofness and soul-searching between childhood and adulthood. And like the thousands of “winter Texans” who migrate to this stretch of the Gulf of Mexico every year, they like to spend the colder months surrounded by warm, salty air.

Humans, however, only seemed to begin to appreciate these similarities after pushing the birds to the brink of extinction.

More than a century of hunting and the widespread conversion of wetlands to farmland in the American Midwest meant that by the time World War II broke out there were fewer than 20 individuals left overwintering in the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge in this stretch of what is known as the Coastal Bend of Texas. Thanks to regulation and decades of “Give a Whoop” public education campaigns, the cranes’ numbers have since increased to more than 300.

As they continue to expand across this rural, sparsely populated stretch of coastline, locals and conservationists are hopeful that the iconic birds can encourage a rare, ecologically-friendly approach to coastal development in a time of mounting human and environmental pressure on coastlines around the world…

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