Old Bill, the Whooping Crane

"Cranes know when it's time to move south for the winter.

And robins, warblers, and bluebirds know when it's time to come back again. But my people? My people know nothing,

not the first thing about God and His rule."

Jeremiah 8:7 (The Message)

Old Bill, the Whooping Crane

For Christmas, my sister gave me an old, out-of-print book, Old Bill, the Whooping Crane by Joseph Wharton Lippincott. The book tells the story of Old Bill, one of the 24 Whooping Cranes that comprised the entire world population of that species in the 1940s. I don't know if my sister gave me the book because my name is Bill, because I like Whooping Cranes, or because I am old. Maybe it was a combination of all three. It's a good book. It reveals just how close we came to losing these birds entirely. Seventy years after the darkest days of the Whooping Crane there is reason to be hopeful. The world population is now over 400. That includes the original Canada to Texas migratory flock, several experimental wild flocks in Wisconsin and Florida, and birds in captive breeding programs. Two years ago I saw a flock of eleven Whooping Cranes that stopped in South Dakota on their trip north to their breeding grounds. When I stare at this photo of those eleven Whooping Cranes, it is just mind boggling to think that 70 years ago this would have been nearly half of the world population of these birds. Whooping Cranes! An amazing story of survival.



Eleven Whooping Cranes near Geddes, South Dakota
April 6, 2010