Adult Whooping Crane
Credit: Bates Littlehales

It appears to be bad year for the last natural migrating flock of whooping cranes.

For those of you unfamiliar the whooping crane, there are 3 total migratory flocks, but two of them require human assistance to guide them in their migration - this wild flock flies annually between Wood Buffalo National Park in the heart of the Boreal in Canada and the Gulf Coast of Texas.

This particular flock is heavily monitored as it nearly went extinct in the first half of the century, reaching a low of just 15 birds in 1941. Its numbers now exceed 200, but because it's a delicate flock, any increases or decreases in numbers are carefully followed.

From April in 2008 to April in 2009 the flock suffered a net loss of 19 total birds, but perhaps more alarming is the fact that this year only 22 out of 52 hatchlings survived - which was a six year low.

Let's hope this is just an off-year and not the beginning of a trend. As North America's tallest bird, this would be a truly sad bird to lose in the wild.

For more background, read this AP article on the spike in deaths.

Here's a short YouTube video of a Whooping Crane in captivity in Florida: