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Show Lone Louisiana Whooping Crane ileli-Captured, Gloved To Texas The U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service is making an effort to find a mate for a lonely Louisiana Louis-iana whooping crane that recently re-cently took up residence in Texas Tex-as after being chased down by helicopters in Louisiana and forcibly for-cibly removed to the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge near Corpus Christi, Tex. This task was undertaken by the service in an effort to save from extinction ex-tinction the 37 whooping cranes that represent the world's total population of the bird. With the population of the whooping crane at such a low level, every surviving member of the crane family should be in production, in the opinion of the Fish and Wildlife Service. Ser-vice. Now that the lonely bird from Louisana has been introduced intro-duced to its kind in Texas, it is hoped that it will help perpetuate per-petuate its species, The. Louisiana crane is the sole survivor of 12 whooping cranes that have lived on lands of the Stanolind Oil corporation near Varmilion, La., during the past 15 years. One by one the others died. Several schemes had been advanced to introduce the survivor to the three dozen whooping cranes that winter at Aransas, but not until March 11 did anything succeed. Using two helicopters belonging to the Petroleum Bell company, the Fish and Wildlife Service, with the cooperation of two representatives repre-sentatives of the National Audubon' Audu-bon' Society, herded the big whooper over a lake. With the powerful downdraft of the helicopters' heli-copters' rotors forcing the bird to land in the water, the FWS and Audubon men were able to land with the float-equipped helicopter hel-icopter and take the whooper aboard. With its nearly seven - foot wings and three-foot legs folded fold-ed up, the bird was placed in a sack and flown to the airport air-port at nearby Lafayette. From there it was driven to Aransas by car. After a little exercise, the once lonely bird was introduced intro-duced to other whoopers. Someday, Some-day, the FWS hopes to return the Louisana crane with numerous num-erous sons and daughters to its broad expanse of marsh near vermilion. The whooping crane is the country's tallest bird, standing over four feet at normal posture and over six feet on tiptoe with its long neck outstretched in its characteristic whooping call. A white bird with black wing tips and a red-fronted face, the whooper is a beautiful sight soaring on its huge wings. Few people get close to the whooping crane, however, as it likes solitude. |
