Whooping Cranes. Photo: © FWS

ABC has signed on as a supporter of The Aransas Project, an alliance concerned with decreasing freshwater flows in the Guadalupe River Basin of Texas and the resulting increase in salinity along coastal inlets, including the Aransas Bay, where the only remaining natural flock of endangered Whooping Cranes spends the winter.

In December 2009, the Aransas Project filed notice to sue the Texas Commission of Environmental Quality, the state agency which regulates water withdrawals from the state's rivers. The suit claims that the commission has mismanaged the Guadalupe River Basin, allowing industrial and agricultural permit holders to irresponsibly withdraw water from coastal marshes, causing a decline of blue crabs, a major food source for the Whooping Crane. Twenty-three whooping cranes died in South Texas in 2008-09. About 530 whooping cranes exist today, all in the United States – about 380 in the wild and 150 in captivity.

FWS officials predicted in early 2010 that the Whooping Crane flock would dwindle because of a lack of food in the coastal marshes where they winter.