whooping crane

CROTHERSVILLE, Ind. - Indiana and federal wildlife officials have put up $7,500 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person or persons responsible for the killing of a federally endangered whooping crane shot to death in southern Indiana 's Jackson County.

A western Indiana man and a juvenile have pleaded guilty in the death of a whooping crane shot as the endangered bird was migrating from Wisconsin to Florida.

Members of the Georgia Department of Natural Resources Board and the state DNR Foundation have donated an additional $4,800 to a reward fund for information in the killings of three migrating whooping cranes.

Federal and state wildlife officers are investigating the suspicious deaths of three whooping cranes west of Albany, Ga., in rural Calhoun County a week ago.

Wildlife authorities are investigating the deaths of three whooping cranes in south Georgia.

The whooping crane - one of the world's most endangered birds and one of the first animals on the U.S. endangered list - could be back in Louisiana's wetlands as early as February under a U.S.

Fish and Wildlife Service proposal.

The deaths are a setback to wildlife officials hoping to boost the population of the endangered birds.

After the poisonous snake slithered into the whooping crane family's marshy grounds and sank its fangs into the chick's neck, death seemed certain.

In this Sunday, Jan. 15, 2006 file photo, a whooping crane eats a crab at the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge near Rockport, Texas.

Wildlife officials say an endangered whooping crane was fatally shot in western Indiana during its migration south.