134 On the trail of vanishing birds 



grew. What had happened to Rusty? A lone vulture appeared, 

 skulking about in the oxeye clumps some distance beyond the 

 nest. The two cranes continued to move off until they were a 

 quarter of a mile north of the nest. Julian had installed an old 

 army-type, battery-operated field telephone on the tower, and I 

 rang him up and told him my fears. When he had joined me the 

 two of us entered the enclosure. Crip and Jo seemed hardly to 

 notice us. For more than an hour we searched through the mud 

 and grass for Rusty. We never found him! All that remained was 

 the empty nest, soggy in the rain, a few pieces of broken eggshell, 

 and, in every patch of mud, the unmistakable tracks of raccoons. 

 Rusty had vanished. 



Thus ended, for the time being, our efforts to produce whooping 

 cranes in captivity. Other attempts have been made since, with 

 tragic and heartbreaking results. Meanwhile, the wild flock, mi- 

 grating to the Canadian breeding grounds on schedule, has 

 hatched and reared a total of 25 young whoopers since Rusty's 

 loss. It seems clear that we must make these wild birds our chief 

 concern. In their continuing ability to return each fall with young 

 lies the whooping crane's only real hope of survival. 



