I am thrilled today to offer an excerpt from Kathleen Kaska's marvelous book about Robert Porter Allen, one of our environmental heroes. Kathleen has offered to give away one copy of her book - she will choose the winner randomly from those who leave comments. Check out Kathleen's links, too - especially her blog. I've been reading it since it began. Good stuff! ~ Sheila
Excerpt from
The Man Who Saved the Whooping Crane:
The Robert Porter Allen Story
by Kathleen Kaska
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| Whooping cranes who currently live on the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge in Texas. Photo courtesy of Mike Sloat. |
It was April 17, 1948 in the early hours of a muggy Texas
morning on the Gulf Coast. The sun at last burned away the thick fog that had
settled over Blackjack Peninsula. The world’s last flock of wild whooping
cranes had spent the winter feeding on blue crab and killifish in the vast salt
flats they called home. During the night, all three members of the Slough
Family had moved to feed on higher ground about two miles away from their usual
haunt. The cool, crisp winter was giving way to a warm balmy spring, the days
were growing longer, and territorial boundaries were no longer defended.
Restlessness had spread throughout the flock.
As Robert Porter Allen drove along East Shore Road near
Carlos Field in his government issued beat-to-hell pickup, he spotted the four
cranes now spiraling a thousand feet above the marsh. He pulled his truck over
to the roadside and watched, hoping to witness, for the first time, a migration
takeoff. One adult crane pulled away from the family and flew northward,
whooping as it rose on an air current. When the others lagged behind, the crane
returned, the family regrouped, circled a few times and landed in the cordgrass
in the shallows of San Antonio Bay. It was Allen’s second year at the Aransas
National Wildlife Refuge. He had learned to read the nuances of his subjects
almost as well as they read the changing of the seasons.
In the days preceding, twenty-four
cranes left for their summer home somewhere in Western Canada, possibly as far
north as the Arctic Circle. This annual event, which had been occurring for at
least 10,000 years, might be one of the last unless Allen could accomplish what
no one else had.
Related Information:
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| Allen in his office. |
Learning
of Robert Porter Allen’s story, and seeing the whooping cranes myself on
numerous occasions at the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge, inspired me to
bring attention to Allen’s work preserving these magnificent birds. In 1984, I
had the opportunity while studying marine biology at the University of Texas
Marine Science Institute, to observe dozens of shorebird species along the
Texas coast. I returned one December to take my first whooping crane tour at
the Aransas Refuge. Learning of the cranes’ endangerment, I immediately knew I
wanted to make a difference in the species’ survival. As a middle-school
science teacher, I included a bird unit in my environmental curriculum. I was
determined to instill in my students a passion for any environmental cause.
Years
later when I began freelance writing, I realized I had another outlet for
spreading the word. In researching an article about whooping cranes for Texas Highways magazine, I learned that
few people had ever heard of Robert Porter Allen or the work he did to save the
species. This was when I decided to continue my research and turn the project
into a book. Robert Porter Allen’s story needed to be told.
UPDATE!
9/30/13
Operation Migration announced today as the official start of the Class of 2013's migration south to Florida. Eight young whoopers have completed their flight training at White River Marsh in Wisconsin and are ready for their maiden migratory flight to Chassahowitzka National Wildlife Refuge in Florida where they will join the Easter Migratory Flock for the winter. Wish them luck; they have a long, exciting journey ahead. To follow their progress, log on to OM's In the Field.
http://operationmigration.org/
9/30/13
Operation Migration announced today as the official start of the Class of 2013's migration south to Florida. Eight young whoopers have completed their flight training at White River Marsh in Wisconsin and are ready for their maiden migratory flight to Chassahowitzka National Wildlife Refuge in Florida where they will join the Easter Migratory Flock for the winter. Wish them luck; they have a long, exciting journey ahead. To follow their progress, log on to OM's In the Field.
http://operationmigration.org/
Kathleen
Kaska,
writer of fiction, nonfiction, stage plays, and travel articles has just
completed her most challenging endeavor. The Man Who Saved the Whooping
Crane, a true story set in the 1940s and 50s, is about Audubon
ornithologist Robert Porter Allen whose mission was to journey into the
Canadian wilderness to save the last flock of whooping cranes before
development wiped out their nesting site, sending them into extinction.
Published by University Press of Florida and released in 2012, the book has
been nominated for the George Perkins Marsh Award for environmental history.
Kaska also writes the award-wining Sydney Lockhart Mystery Series and the
Classic Triviography Mystery Series.
My Links:
Want to learn more about the whooping crane,
check out the following websites?
