Whooping Cranes
Grus americana
My showy cousins' recovery is always good for a grin. You can find more about them and their remarkable return from near extinction in the Grus section of the Garden. Here I want to share the grinworthy tale of the impact a single human had on the salutation of a beautiful species.
Today's whooping cranes owe a HUGE debt of gratitude to a human, Dr. George Archibald, who was one of the founders of the International Crane Foundation. He is responsible for many of the programs protecting cranes around the world. In the 1980's, Dr. Archibald worked with Tex, a whooping crane who had been raised by humans and had imprinted on them. She refused to mate with another crane, which was a serious problem because there were only 100 whooping cranes at that time. So Dr. Cox got the crazy idea of dancing with her in the hope that she would form a bond with him. It worked! She danced with him and then laid eggs, which were fertilized through artificial insemination. After some failures, she successfully hatched the chick Gee Whiz who in turn fathered many chicks who were released into the Florida flock. You can watch George tell his story at YouTube.