What is the current population of whooping cranes, and where are they?
As of March 2005 there were 453 cranes: 326 in the wild and 127 in captivity, of which there are 31 breeding pairs. The wild cranes live mostly in Wood Buffalo, in Alberta Canada or in Aransas National Wildlife Refuge Complex in Texas (they migrate between the two locations). The captive birds live in various zoos. See the “source” link below for more detail about where the cranes live. According to this late 2006 article, the crane population is 518 birds, which is up from the March 2005 count. Sources: http://www.operationmigration.org/Whooping_Crane_Count.
