Keeping the spotlight on World Water Day, the Mississippi Sandhill Crane, Today’s Endangered All-Star, is a genetically distinct and critically-endangered species that has suffered the equivalent of its house burning down, over and over again. The unique wet pine savannahs of the American south have been magically turned into housing tracts, highways, and industry, leaving this crane with nowhere to go but the Mississippi Sandhill Crane National Wildlife Refuge, a tiny fragment of habitat surrounded by development. The Refuge is home to the 110 refugees of the species, with 20-25 breeding pairs, intensively managed until the day when Southerners allow some semblance of its ecosystem to return.
For more Endangered Frequent Fliers, see Grist’s slideshow, inspired by Cornell’s recent State of the Birds report.
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