The Comeback of the Whooping Crane

When I was little I loved things like Easter Egg hunts, scavenger hunts, and anything else that involved finding treasure. Now, I find treasure through geocaching. It might seem easy, but it's not just following your GPS to the right coordinates. Geocaching is a treasure hunting game of the grandest kind involving searching all kinds of odd places until one finally finds the "treasure chest" under a rock, in a tree hole, among a pile of leaves or any other good hiding place. Then, if you're really lucky, you might find really cool treasure to swap with something of your own.

Last Saturday, our treasure hunting elevated to a much grander scale. We went to the Hiawasee Wildlife Refuge to see the Sandhill Cranes during a geocaching jaunt. It was a beautiful day, and the cranes were making great music for quite a few birdwatchers. I was disappointed that there were too many people to be stealthy treasure seekers, and then a nice birdwatcher showed me a much better treasure. His scope was on a beautiful Whooping Crane, a grand white bird, much taller than the rest of the smaller brown Sandhills, who was calmly preening among the excitement around him.

Why is this bird such a treasure to find, you ask? Well, in 1941 there were only 15 Whooping Cranes left. This small flock, who nest in Canada and winter in Texas, barely escaped extinction. Although many efforts have been made to save it, there are still only about 200.

Enter a bunch of white robed scientists with bird puppets and ultralights, stage right . . . I mean, east. These scientists have created a way to breed the birds in captivity and then teach them a new migration route, nesting in Wisconsin and wintering in Florida. This eastern migratory route hadn't been used by Whooping Cranes in over a century. Now thanks to these efforts by ultralight fliers in bird suits, they are making quite a comeback, slowly, but surely.

So, to see a Whooping Crane here in Tennessee, stopping over on his migration back home . . . that's a wonder to behold. It's a treasure that has been saved.