I 



213 We find terra incognita! 



gist at the District headquarters. The time of the observation and 

 the report was just before 5 P.M. Fuller was advised to stand by 

 so as to join another flight that would take off just as soon as the 

 helicopter could return to Fort Smith for refueling. By 6:35 P.M. 

 the machine had landed, refueled, and was again in the air, this 

 time with Fuller aboard. Within the next hour the pair of whoop- 

 ers was sighted once more, and, in an adjacent area some miles to 

 the north, a single adult whooping crane was also observed. 



The region where these birds were seen is interlaced with a 

 countless number of small ponds and lakes, shallow and swampy 

 in character and poorly drained. Many of them are separated by 

 narrow ridges of spruce and other vegetation. The footing is so 

 uncertain that although the pilot attempted to land so as to meas- 

 ure the birds' tracks, he was unable to do so, although a landing 

 was made later in a more open fringe of marsh. There are no 

 deeper lakes nearby and it is therefore an area that is normally 

 avoided by conventional fixed-winged, float-equipped aircraft, be- 

 cause it offers no water suitable for even an emergency landing. 

 In addition, there is no ready means of access on the ground, and, 

 in fact, no reason for either Indians or whites going there at all 

 in the spring and summer season. Or at any other time. 



Here, then, was the long-sought terra incognita of the whooping 

 crane, its last stronghold and bulwark against the intrusions of 

 the outer world. 



In Ottawa, Washington, and New York, plans were immedi- 

 ately discussed for sending a ground-survey party into the area for 

 detailed observations. However, it was decided that the season was 

 already too advanced, and the expedition was put off until the 

 spring of 1955 provided, of course, that whooping cranes re- 

 turned to the area. Meanwhile, the 1954 breeding season, so hope- 

 ful in revealing the nesting locale of at least a portion of the sur- 

 viving flock, was the poorest on record with regard to results. Of 

 the 24 whooping cranes that had gone North in April, only 21 

 returned to the Texas coast in October-November. And not one 

 young bird of the year reached the wintering grounds alive, the 

 first time that a complete failure had been noted in this vital 

 department. 



