Understanding the Complexities and Dynamics of the Endangered Whooping Crane

A review of John B. French, Sara J. Converse, and Jane Austin, editors. Whooping Cranes Biology and Conservation. Biodiversity of the World, Conservation from Genes to Landscapes. Academic Press, San Diego, California, USA, 2019. Few species possess such a complex and long-term life history story as the Whooping Crane. This once-prolific bird was nearly extinct in the 1940s when population size was 16 individuals; from that point forward, the species has had its ups and downs, but now finds its population status trending upward with more than 500 individuals in the natural migratory Aransas-Wood Buffalo population and just over 600 across North America. Whooping Cranes Biology and Conservation by French et al. provides a detailed account of each stage of the crane's story, navigating the reader through the events that lead to the crane's demise (First Era: before 1950), the subsequent population turnaround (Second Era: 1950-present), and setting the stage for future conservation efforts and potential population expansion. Upon publication, Whooping Cranes Biology and Conservation provides readers with the most complete and up to date compilation of information available on Whooping Crane biology, ecology, and conservation. The book's forward, written by longtime crane conservationist George Archibald, elegantly frames the book's goals within the crane's historical legacy, highlighting the conservation timeline and the unique social and political factors that surround this species. The dynamic nature of Whooping Crane conservation and its intricate life history is in fact what makes a volume like this so challenging to compile and edit. To this task, the editors have successfully created a volume that touches on each and every aspect surrounding the Whooping Crane. Here, describing the human–crane relationship is critical to a complete analysis of crane biology, and the authors spend substantial time discussing captive breeding, population reintroductions, non-migratory populations, and other anthropogenic influences (e.g., aircraft-led migrations, illegal shootings, and habitat management practices). The crane story is complicated. One population is naturally migratory, and there are other non-migratory populations located in numerous locations. There is also a long list of regulatory, research, and conservation entities involved in crane research activities and decision-making. To say the least, it is a complex story with many moving parts; however, the organization of the book is logical and aides the reader in traversing this intricate and convoluted story. Despite succeeding in bringing the reader through the complexities of crane life history, the text in some chapters is thick with acronyms and jargon, which can often bog the reader down and make it hard to follow. Additionally, as with other edited volumes, there is a fair amount of chapter-to-chapter style variability, with stark differences in writing style and figure quality. This detracts somewhat from the overall cohesiveness of the volume, but is understandable based on the extremely diverse information presented throughout the book. In many ways, Whooping Cranes Biology and Conservation's core is rooted in Robert Porter Allen's 1952 Whooping Crane Research Report (Allen 1952). For decades, Allen's book was the seminal Whooping Crane text and it provided the fundamental background information and technical credence that was essential to the development of the Whooping Crane's recovery efforts. The current volume pays homage to Allen, but then expands far beyond the early text to further the reader's understanding of not only the crane's life history and general ecology, but also the bird's population and breeding biology, social structure, habitat use, captive breeding efforts, and conservation. This work expands crane knowledge by adding new scientific technology and data analysis techniques to create a rich crane database (note here the lengthy appendix at the end of Chapter 3 on historical records of Whooping Crane observations) and visualization tools to better understand this dynamic species and to guide future conservation efforts. If Porter Allen's text set the stage for the initial phase of crane conservation, Whooping Cranes Biology and Conservation takes his work into the 21st century and outlines future conservations needs and goals. Several chapters in Whooping Cranes Biology and Conservation focus on the most abundant population of cranes, the naturally migratory Aransas-Wood Buffalo population, and touches upon the many challenges facing this population in their Canadian breeding grounds, Texas wintering grounds, and along their lengthy North American migratory route. Throughout the wintering grounds along the Texas Gulf Coast, the book highlights several pressing ecological issues affecting Whooping Cranes including climate change (e.g., sea level rise, drought, and storm impacts), urban expansion, and modified freshwater inflows, each with the potential to impact crane food resource availability and overall coastal territory habitat quality. This volume addresses these wintering ground issues and effectively relates these challenges to the current context of crane ecology. Conversely, the Canadian breeding grounds have always been a bit of a black box for many, mostly due to their remote nature and lack of access points. While the book does present an excellent overview of population and breeding range dynamics for the Canadian breeding grounds, additional space in the book to discuss this region in greater detail would have been time well spent and may have helped fill the perceived information gap for this region/aspect of the crane's life cycle. The book is the most complete account of Whooping Crane biology to date and is a must have for readers ranging from Whooping Crane enthusiasts to academics and Whooping Crane researchers. The book is written in the style of the educated lay reader; however, some chapters get into detailed ecological theory and modeling data, which may be excessive for the average armchair ecologist. That being said, individual chapters function as stand-alone units and could easily be extracted and used in university courses ranging from organismal to ecosystem ecology. I look forward to slotting this text on my bookshelf right next to Robert Porter Allen's 1952 version; together they create complimentary bookends that provide a complete historical review and future conservation goals for the majestic Whooping Crane.

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