Aransas National Wildlife Refuge

The whooping crane nearly vanished. When it was listed as endangered in 1967, about fifty birds were left in this flock, the Aransas-Wood Buffalo population, which summers in Wood Buffalo National Park in Canada and flies 2,500 miles to winter in the coastal marshes here, eating blue crabs and Carolina wolfberry. Fish and Wildlife Service aerial surveys estimated about 540 cranes, at least 57 of them juveniles, in the primary survey area around the refuge in the 2025-26 winter, after 557 the year before; the flock has stayed above 500 for nine straight years and has grown about 4.24 percent a year on average since 1938. As it grows it spreads, and more cranes now winter outside the survey area, eight of them in Oklahoma last winter.

The refuge came first. In 1937 the government used duck-stamp money to buy the surface rights to Leroy Denman's St. Charles Ranch on Blackjack Peninsula, and the refuge was established on December 31, 1937, for migratory waterfowl; Continental Oil kept the right to drill. Karankawa, Lipan, Tonkawa and Comanche people had all used this ground. The refuge now covers more than 115,000 acres, including the Matagorda Island unit.

The 16-mile auto tour runs through oak savanna and past an observation tower over San Antonio Bay, with a pier, trails and an alligator viewing area along the way. More than 400 bird species have been recorded. Register and pay at the visitor center or the kiosk.