Prior to European colonization, tens of thousands of whoopin…
Prior to European colonization, tens of thousands of whooping cranes lived in North America. By 1938, due to overexploitation and habitat loss, whooping cranes were virtually extinct, with a total population of only 15 individuals. Since then, careful conservation efforts have increased the North American whooping crane population to over 800 today. From a genetic standpoint, as a result of this catastrophe, whooping cranes experienced a “population bottleneck”, which is a severe form of . The current population of whooping cranes should be expected to have , relative to the pre-colonial population.