Lonely whooping crane that refused to mate helped save one of the world’s rarest birds

Ornithologist George Archibald danced with a whooping crane named Tex for seven years to save the rare bird.

Tex was hand-raised at the San Antonio Zoo and imprinted on humans, rejecting other whooping cranes as mates.

Archibald mimicked crane courtship behavior to trigger hormonal changes needed for egg-laying.

In 1982, Tex produced a fertile egg after artificial insemination using semen from a male whooping crane.

The resulting chick, Gee Whiz, fathered generations of whooping cranes and became a conservation success story.