Incredible Journeys: Keeping Tabs on Migrating Whooping Cranes

Migration: Many animal species do it — from tiny zooplankton to enormous whales —   moving over every continent and through all oceans, from north to south, south to north, Europe to Asia, and Asia to Africa. This movement by individual animals in response to season or life stage typically involves substantial numbers and vast distances.

Recent studies give scientists a better understanding of migrations at the species and population levels and reveal implications for conservation. This series focuses on a few specific species, what we’re learning about their migrations, and how that knowledge may help us protect them.

This installment looks at whooping cranes, an endangered species with a population that migrates between Canada and Texas.

Endangered whooping cranes (Grus americana) are among North America’s rarest birds, but also one of its most well-known. This may be in part due to an impressive, continent-spanning migration by a population of the birds who breed during summer in Wood-Buffalo National Park, Canada, and spend winters on the Texas coast, some 2,500 miles away.