Very rare Whooping Crane

We had the privilege on Saturday of seeing very rare Whooping Cranes at the Calgary Zoo Ranch, known as the Devonian Wildlife Conservation Centre, located about 10 kilometers south of Calgary near DeWinton.

"The Zoo ranch is a 320-acre captive breeding facility, and is not open to the public. The ranch also serves as a Zoo quarantine and holding area for everything from elk to zebras.

In the late 1800s, an estimated 500 to 1,400 whooping cranes inhabited North America. By the 1940s only 16 remained. Thanks to the work at the Zoo ranch and elsewhere, whooping cranes are making a comeback with 472 in the wild and in captivity.

The Zoo ranch was the first Canadian site designated for a captive flock, with two pairs arriving in 1992. The Nat Christie Whooping Crane Breeding facility opened in 1993 at the ranch. The first whooping crane chicks hatched at the ranch in 1996.

As of November 2006, the Zoo has seven adult pairs of whooping cranes, two singleton breeding males, three juveniles hatched in 2005 and, so far, five chicks have hatched this year. There are also two cranes on display in the Zoo’s Canadian Wilds. To date, the Zoo ranch has released 16 chicks into the wild. In addition to the chicks hatched this spring, the Zoo shipped 10 fertile eggs to Patuxent, Maryland. Five of these eggs hatched and the chicks are destined to join the flock being trained in Operation Migration – an international effort that trains birds to migrate with ultra-light aircraft."

www.canadiancowboy.ca/features/the_zoo_ranch.html