The Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries receives 11 juvenile whooping cranes at White Lake Wetlands Conservation Area near Gueydan as they attempt to reestablish a flourishing population. LDWF Wildlife Biologist Sara Zimorski the birds have been equipped with tracking transmitters and will be released next week. Most stay in the state.
“We currently have one bird who is actually in Arkansas and she is probably the exception to the rule. She has spent more time outside of Louisiana than in it. They do move around throughout the state but most of them do remain in the state throughout the year,” said Zimorski.
Zimorski says when reintroduction efforts started in 2011, the bird was absent from the state. The state’s population of the bird at one point was as high as 10,000 but was nearly wiped out in the 1950s.
“At one point they were down to a low of 21 birds total in existence so they really got to the brink of going extinct,” said Zimorski.
Zimorski says one of the contributing factors to the bird’s decline was the disappearance of wetlands in favor of agriculture development. Now, the birds are starting to take a liking to some of those areas too.
“They use a lot of rice and crawfish fields because those properties and those farms are sort of managed basically like a shallow wetland, which is the exact kind of habitat that the whooping cranes prefer,” said Zimorski.
The current total population is estimated to be just over 800 with about 660 in the wild, 68 of those are in Louisiana.
