Why did the whooping crane population decline?
During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, whooping crane habitat was lost to agriculture and drainage, and humans hunted the birds and collected their eggs all of which contributed to the population decline. While Wood Buffalo National Park was established in 1922, it wasn’t until 1955 that it was discovered that whooping cranes nested there. The Aransas National Wildlife Refuge (their principle wintering site), located in Texas, was established in 1937. Captive propagation, or breeding, initiated at the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center in Maryland in 1967 produced the first captive-produced eggs in 1975.
