Whooping crane

Whooping cranes eat lots of different foods.

In Texas they love blue crabs and clams. They also eat berries, seeds, frogs and bugs.

Whooping cranes eat both animals and plants. They walk slowly, pecking and poking their bills into wet or sandy ground to find food, and they stab bigger prey.

In their Texas winter home they eat mostly blue crabs and clams, plus berries such as wolfberry and cranberry, acorns and marsh plants. In Canada they eat mollusks, crustaceans, water insects, minnows, frogs, snakes, mice, voles and berries. On migration they pick up leftover grain in harvested fields.

Whooping cranes are omnivores that forage on the ground and in shallow water, pecking and probing sandy or flooded soils, gleaning insects, berries and seeds from low plants and stabbing larger animals. Cornell contrasts this stately browsing with the patient stalking of herons.

On the Gulf Coast the diet is mostly blue crabs, clams and other animals, with plant foods such as Carolina wolfberry, cranberry, acorns, cordgrass and marsh onions. The Canadian breeding population takes mollusks, crustaceans, aquatic insects, minnows, frogs, snakes, mice, voles, aquatic tubers and berries. During migration the birds also eat waste barley, wheat and corn from harvested fields.

Whooping cranes dance!

They jump, flap their wings and toss their heads. Partners call together in a loud duet.

Courting whooping cranes perform an amazing dance. They leap into the air, flap and sweep their wings, pump and toss their heads, and even fling feathers and grass. Partners also call together in a duet.

Each pair defends a nesting territory, mostly guarded by the male. Whooping cranes live and travel alone, in pairs, as families or in small flocks of up to 7, sometimes mixing with much larger flocks of sandhill cranes.

Courtship is an energetic dance of leaping, kicking, head-pumping and wing-sweeping, in which birds may fling feathers and grass. Pairs also perform a unison call, the courtship duet.

Breeding pairs hold territories defended mainly by the male, who drives off intruding whooping cranes by running, flapping, hissing and jumping; new pairs often settle near their parents. Whooping cranes live and travel singly, in pairs, as families or in small flocks of up to 7, and sometimes associate with sandhill cranes. Cornell notes that they learn migration routes from other cranes or, in reintroduction projects, from researchers flying ultralight aircraft.

Long ago there were very few whooping cranes left.

People protected their homes and raised baby cranes. Now there are many more. They still need our help.

Whooping cranes once lived in prairie marshes across the northern United States and southern Canada, but they disappeared as land was farmed and birds were hunted. By 1941 only about 21 were left.

People worked hard to save them. Laws protected them, Wood Buffalo National Park and Aransas National Wildlife Refuge protected their homes, and scientists raised chicks in captivity. In the 2025–2026 winter, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service estimated about 540 cranes in the wild flock's main wintering area.

Whooping cranes are listed as Endangered by the IUCN (global assessment, 2020) and in both the United States and Canada. Cornell traces the decline of a once widespread prairie-marsh bird to agriculture and hunting, and its survival to the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (1916), Wood Buffalo National Park (1922) and Aransas National Wildlife Refuge (1937). Captive breeding and reintroduction began in 1967.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's 2025–2026 aerial survey estimated about 540 cranes, including at least 57 juveniles, in the primary area around Aransas, within the margin of error of the previous year's 557, with 52 more seen elsewhere. When the species was listed as endangered in 1967 there were about 50; the flock has been estimated at over 500 for more than nine years running. Power-line collisions, Gulf Coast storms, spills from barges and occasional shooting remain risks.