From the News: A 50-year effort to raise endangered whooping cranes comes to an end

A 50-year effort to raise endangered whooping cranes comes to an end

Animal care technician Kathryn Nassar wears a costume and holds a crane puppet as she interacts with a 2-month-old whooping crane at the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center. (Salwan Georges/The Washington Post)

For 50 years, Maryland's Patuxent Wildlife Refuge, located outside of Washington DC, has been the central hub of the effort to save one of America's most endangered and extraordinary birds.  Now, recent budget cuts have forced the closure of its legendary whooping crane program, long heralded as one of the key tools in efforts to breed this bird back from the edge of extinction.

Thankfully, in recent years Patuxent had begun to spread its cranes out among zoological facilities.  When I was young, only one or two zoos exhibited whooping cranes.  Now, they are increasingly common in our collections as more zoos join this breeding program.  Hopefully, the new recruits will be enough to replace Patuxent's lost crane production. 

All the same, I find this worrying.  So many endangered species breeding and reintroduction programs in this country - California condor, black-footed ferret, red wolf - have seen a tremendous leadership role from the US Federal Government.  It looks like those days may be over now.

In other words... we're on our own.