SCIENCE IN THE NEWS DAILY
Whooping Crane's Story of Survival Offers Hope
from the Minneapolis Star Tribune (Registration Required)
ARANSAS NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE, Texas (Associated Press) -- After the poisonous snake slithered into the whooping crane family's marshy grounds and sank its fangs into the chick's neck, death seemed certain. The bird's head quickly turned red and swelled to the size of a basketball. He refused to eat for days and was too weak to even stand. Somehow, though, he survived.
And now the bird--dubbed Scarbaby--is a healthy adult whose resilience offers a speck of hope for the endangered species. Just a year after a record number of cranes died in their south Texas wintering grounds, wildlife managers embrace even the smallest successes. "To me, it symbolizes the fight to survive," said Tom Stehn, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist who's studied them for nearly 30 years. "They're pretty tough."
There are about 400 wild whooping cranes in the world, and biologists had feared that number would drop further this winter after last year's record 23 Texas deaths. Even though the birds fared better than expected--only one died this winter--the cranes face many obstacles to survive as a species.
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