Organization and Wildlife Preservation: The Case of the Whooping Crane in North America

Abstract

The campaign to save the North American whooping crane from extinction began in the early twentieth century with a few individuals seeking legal protection for the bird. It evolved into a programme involving scientists and public interest groups in the United States and Canada, and requiring active strategies to increase reproduction and form new flocks. Programmes and plans have become progressively more complicated; power over policy has shifted from individuals and non-governmental organizations to federal agencies; and academically qualified scientists have displaced naturalists and nature-lovers. The evolution of administrative structures and the increasing importance of federal agencies and experts is seen as a response not only to public demands for action to save species, and the crane in particular, but to the imperatives of bureaucracy and organization required by an industrialized society using all the land.