39 A giant of beauty and grandeur 



time." The Cooperative Whooping Crane Project was the natural 

 outgrowth of this situation. In addition to the leading role under- 

 taken by the two cooperating agencies, many other organizations 

 answered the plea for action in every way that they could, among 

 them the Canadian Wildlife Service, the Saskatchewan Depart- 

 ment of Natural Resources, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, 

 the Saskatchewan Fish and Game League, Ducks Unlimited, 

 the game commissions of those states through which the birds 

 migrate, and a long list of others. And this was only the begin- 

 ning. In the ten years and more that have passed since this cam- 

 paign got under way the public has learned about whooping 

 cranes. To quote once more from the editorial in Christian Science 

 Monitor: 



Some millions of Americans will hope, we are sure, that the 

 whooping cranes are spared for their own sake. And we have 

 an idea that most of them will at least sense, also, that each of 

 these beautiful birds, as it flies southward, carries a Yellowstone 

 or a Quetico-Superior Wilderness between its great wings. 



But this widespread response and this brand of understanding 

 has not been accomplished all at once. It has taken time. In 1945, 

 when the whole thing began, the immensity of the problem and 

 our ignorance of the facts were appalling to contemplate. 



In December, 1945, previous to my arrival at Aransas, after two 

 flights over the area and consultation with Fish and Wildlife per- 

 sonnel, Pettingill estimated the Texas population at twenty-five 

 birds, adults and young. Sixteen of these were on the Aransas 

 National Wildlife Refuge and nine on Matagorda Island, which 

 is privately owned and lies immediately to the south facing the 

 open Gulf of Mexico. In Louisiana, the Service's flyway biologist, 

 Bob Smith, reported the continued presence of two whoopers be- 

 tween White Lake and Gueydan, all that remained of the flock of 

 thirteen observed by Johnny Lynch in 1939. As there were re- 

 portedly two additional birds that had been injured and were be- 

 ing held in captivity, the best we could count on, as of the previous 

 winter, was a total population of twenty-nine whooping cranes still 

 surviving. However, a number of interested people, myself in- 



