$23,250

That’s the reward posted by a consortium of private environmental groups for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the perpetrator who shot and killed a male bird in the Alabama marshlands in mid-February, one of six such endangered birds killed in the last fourteen months. Estimates of remaining birds in Canada and the United States suggest that the entire remaining population of this species numbers somewhere between 50 and just over 400, and a breeding campaign has been mounted in the last couple of years to restore this species to the continent. “The Whooping Crane (Grus americana), the tallest North American bird, is an endangered crane species named for its whooping sound and call. Along with the Sandhill Crane, it is one of only two crane species found in North America. The whooping crane's lifespan is estimated to be 22 to 24 years in the wild.” Wikipedia

Embellished by the civil laws of many states, killing or illegally transporting a whooping crane in the United States carries a federal penalty of $10,000 and up to six months behind bars. The United States Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) has been slowly breeding and releasing whooping cranes back into the wild in several states, and the bird killed in Alabama noted above, who carried federal market (22-10 – the 22^nd bird bred and release in 2010), had been originally released in Wisconsin the year before.

Here is the process of breeding and reintroduction as described on the FWS Website: “The crane chicks are being captive-reared at the U.S. Geological Survey's Patuxent Wildlife Research Center [in Laurel, Maryland] until they are 40 to 60 days old. Training started from just before hatch with exposure of the eggs to sounds of crane calls and ultralight aircraft engine noise. At Patuxent, chicks will be trained to follow the ultralights in the protected captive environment and later in the out-of-doors pens at the center. When the chicks no longer need heat and protection from the elements, they will be moved to Necedah National Wildlife Refuge [Wisconsin] for flight training behind the ultralight…

“When teaching cranes to follow an ultralight aircraft they can easily become overly tame. If this happened, they could suffer an "identity crisis" when they reach breeding age and not recognize other whooping cranes, or become a nuisance because they associate people with a source of food. While interacting with the birds, the Operation Migration handlers minimize human contact time. They work in silence while covered head to toe in gray fabric costumes that disguise the human form. This is done so that the cranes will not be familiar with the normally dressed humans they may encounter after they are released.”

There is concern among those investigating these killings that somehow they might be linked. The February 20^th AOLNews.com explains the killing that immediately preceded the death of 10-22 above: “The crane discovered last month, #12-04, was an adult male who had learned how to migrate behind an ultralight aircraft flown by Operation Migration, a partner in a group formed to increase whooping crane numbers… That crane made its first migration to Florida in 2004, wintering there for five years until it started spending winters on the marshes around Weiss Lake, Ala., where the Fish and Wildlife Service said it was found dead. The crane had nested with a female in the spring, producing a chick that did not survive… ‘This is a six-year-old bird, one of a couple of dozen that are old enough, sexually mature, and could breed,’ Liz Condie of Operation Migration told the St. Petersburg Times....‘This crane had a chick. Could this be any freaking worse?’ Condie said. Three cranes -– two males and a female that hatched in 2010 -- were found shot to death in Calhoun County, Ga., on Dec. 30.”

In the end, nature remains ambivalent about extinction; she has seen it come and go millions of times before. She does not care if we destroy the planet, eliminate species, or even if we create an environment that will not even sustain human life. Nature has time on her hands. She sends us little reminders of what irresponsible environmental behavior could mean for human beings, but if we die off, she’ll let the environment recover for a few dozen millennia… and simply and slowly replace us… or not. It is our world, our environment and our responsibility… if we expect to survive in the longer term. Whooping cranes, beautiful and magnificent, are just one more reminder.

I’m Peter Dekom, and living well while still maintaining a sustainable environment is the most complex balancing act entrusted to human being.