In honor of Canada’s 150th birthday, the Calgary Zoo is celebrating one of the many national sources of pride – Canada’s wildlife. Canada has long been known for its incredible and diverse animal population, which has been led by the beaver since 1975. The Calgary Zoo thinks that it is time that Canadians should have a voice in choosing the candidate that best represents their wild side.
A movement is growing – citizens looking for the national animal that represents the mature and diverse country that Canada has become. With a little flexing of our democratic muscles, constituents can finally vote for Canada’s Greatest Animal.
So who will it be?
Whooping cranes are the symbol of conservation in North America. Due to excellent cooperation between the United States and Canada, this endangered species is slowly recovering from the brink of extinction. North America was once home to more than 10,000 cranes. By 1938, the population reached an all-time low of 14 known adults. In the early 1940s, the conservation movement leapt into action.
Over seventy years later, after significant breeding-area protection, captive breeding, aircraft-led migration and relocation efforts, the whooping crane has made a slow, often tenuous comeback. There are a little over 600 whooping cranes in the world today in the wild and in captivity. Last year, authorities “estimated” the population of the only natural surviving wild flock of whooping cranes to be 329. This population migrates 2,500 miles from their nesting grounds in Wood Buffalo National Park, Alberta to Aransas National Wildlife Refuge, along the Gulf Coast in Texas .
Because of its tenacity to survive and slowly increase in population, Friends of the Wild Whoopers, (FOTWW) is backing and voting for the whooping crane to be Canada’s Greatest Animal. We hope that you will vote for the whooping crane too!
Do you think the whooping crane should be Canada’s Greatest Animal? If so, just click here to vote! We did!
***** FOTWW’s mission is to help preserve and protect the Aransas/Wood Buffalo
population of wild whooping cranes and their habitat. *****
Friends of the Wild Whoopers is a nonprofit 501(c)3 organization.
