A close shot from a similar angle as the previous page features the whooping crane, along with a porcupine and a number of other animals.

The North American whooping crane, a white bird almost 5 ft tall, was nearly extinct in 1941 and is still endangered; the gray sandhill crane, which winters west of the Mississippi, has also become rarer.

The whooping crane is believed to have never been very abundant.   Indiscriminate shooting, habitat disturbance, and the draining of large isolated marshes decimated the crane population.   And, by 1941, there were only 21 wild birds and two captives in existence.   Today the species is still on the endangered list, with only 300 whooping cranes in the world, and is carefully monitored.

There is a good article about the whooping crane at the San Antonio's Zoo site and to find out what can and is being done to help, see Patuxent's Crane Information.