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Whooping Crane

Grus americana

Classification

Class
Aves
Family
Gruidae

The whooping crane (Grus americana) is an endangered crane species, native to North America, named for its "whooping" calls. Along with the sandhill crane (Antigone canadensis), it is one of only two crane species native to North America, and it is also the tallest North American bird species, with an estimated 22–30+ year life expectancy in the wild. After being pushed to the brink of extinction by unregulated hunting and loss of habitat that left just 21 wild (and two captive) cranes by 1941, the whooping crane made a partial recovery through conservation efforts.

Distribution

(c) U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Headquarters, some rights reserved (CC BY) · CC-BY
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Countries in the Picchu catalog
Germany · 1