Book: The Man who Saved the Whooping Crane by Kathleen Kaska

The man was Robert Porter Allen and this book tells of his work as an ornithologist and naturalist, not only studying whooping cranes but also flamingos and roseate spoonbills. Allen spent thousands of hours searching for cranes, observing them and writing detailed reports. Historically, the cranes wintered in the Aransas NWR along the Gulf Coast of Texas but their nesting grounds were elusive. It took several years before they were eventually found in Wood Buffalo Provincial Park in Saskatchewan, and then it was really an accident...

It was Wednesday, June 30, 1954, and the forest service in Canada were checking the status of "Fire 24, which had been burning for several days....As Landells turned to head back to the station, something in the marsh below caught his attention. Landells nudged Wilson, decreased altitude, and flew back around; there was no doubt in either of their minds that below, feeding in the marsh were two adult whooping cranes. That in itself was a rare and wondrous site. Spotting the rust-colored chick following behind was like finding the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow....For the last nine years, virtually everyone living, working, or visiting the area had been on the lookout."

"Finding the nesting site was just the first step; securing and protecting the habitat offered hope for the whooping crane's future."

But it wasn't until June of the next summer that Allen finally was back in Canada. Bob had already spent four summers in a futile search for the cranes' breeding grounds.

"They headed out across the burn, its mushy surface feeling much like a saturated sponge. Where the burn abruptly ended. a thicket of stubby conifers had braided their branches into a tangle. When the branches became too stubborn to push aside, Allen and Stewart slashed their way through, fighting to keep their boots from being sucked off by the soppy ground. Sweat saturated their clothing before they'd covered 50 yards. Black flies and mosquitoes descended in clouds."

Seeing the birds from the air was far different from trekking overland to their nesting site, but they were rewarded: "At precisely 9:25 a.m., they stepped in to a clearing, the blinding sun reflecting off the still surface of a small pond. In the distance, a flash of white caught their eye. An adult whooping crane stepped out of the reeds. Moments later, another crane emerged."

This dedicated man persevered in his demanding field work for years, moving his children and wife Evelyn around the country, often taking them on his field trips. Evelyn was an accomplished pianist, having graduated from the School of Musical Art, the school that became Juilliard, shortly before meeting Bob Allen. She gave up a debut concert tour to live in a trailer on Tavernier Key with him, writing in her diary "I cannot do this. No water, no electricity, no phone." But she could and did, and when "the music circuit got word of this talented young pianist...jazz musicians from Key West began to arrive on Saturday nights to sit in with Evelyn. The McKenzie drugstore quickly became the hot spot in the Upper Keys."

There are also wonderful black and white photographs showing Allen, his family and his scientist friends in various places in North America: canoeing in Canada, the portages and log jams, whooping cranes, camping...

In 1941 the whooping crane population was 15 birds; today they are still rare, numbering only in the hundreds..not even 1000 yet. They are larger than sandhill cranes. The magnificent adults are all white with black wingtips and red caps. The efforts to protect them continues and the web site www.operationmigration.org shows the amazing work of how cranes are nurtured and raised in Wisconsin, how imprinting is accomplished and how ultralights are used to teach the cranes how to migrate. The web site is well worth a visit. As the author says: "You won't be disappointed."

Sadly, Robert Allen died of a heart attack when he was 58 year old. Three previously unnamed keys near Bottleneck Key are named The Bob Allen Keys in his honor.