Whooping crane use around Air Force Bases in Oklahoma, 2017-2022

The Aransas-Wood Buffalo population of whooping cranes migrates through the U.S. Great Plains twice annually, moving between wintering areas along coastal Texas and summering areas in and around Wood Buffalo National Park, Canada. These birds primarily migrate within a roughly 300-km-wide corridor that spans areas in Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, and northwestern Montana in the U.S. The United States Air Force operates three bases in Oklahoma within the migration corridor of the whooping crane. These data support summarizations that identify temporal patterns of potential encounters, spatial patterns of use surrounding bases and regionally, and use of airspace by flying whooping cranes.