Recently Emily Endert, a bird trainer of the Wings Financial World of Birds Show, had the opportunity to travel to Austwell, Texas to participate in a research study focusing on the whooping crane. The Minnesota Zoo is proud to support staff members and their passion to help protect amazing animals around the world and it’s just one way that the Zoo is connecting people, animals and the natural world to save wildlife. Read more about her experience here.

Did you know that the crane family, Gruidae, contains 15 species of cranes, 11 of which are endangered? One of these endangered species, the whooping crane, resides in North America and this past January, I was able to participate in a project through a conservation research organization called Earthwatch to study their migrating population in the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge near Austwell, Texas.

There are fewer than 400 whooping cranes left in North America; a little over 300 of those individuals belong to the only migratory population of this species in the world. This population spends their summers in Wood Buffalo National Park in northern Canada and migrates to the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge for the winter. Whooping cranes in Texas are highly dependent on berries from the Carolina wolfberry plant and blue crabs to replenish their energy stores after their long migration; in turn, these food sources provide them with enough energy to return to their breeding grounds in Canada.

January temperatures of 50-70 degrees in Texas felt incredible, especially when I heard it was below zero in Minnesota! Under the direction of scientists from Sam Houston State University, we observed whooping crane behavior in their known territories in this region. We also conducted habitat assessments at the observation sites to see how prevalent Carolina wolfberries and blue crabs were – this meant spending all day slogging through the marsh carrying binoculars, notebooks, measuring tape and one-meter-square quadrants for counting plots of Carolina wolfberries while trying to avoid being sucked down waist-deep into the mud! It was worth it to see the cranes in their natural habitat and know that we were gaining more knowledge to help protect them

By studying whooping crane behavior in conjunction with food source abundance, we can identify the most ideal habitat for these animals within the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge. We can then use this knowledge to prevent further destruction of their habitat by humans.