Fort Smith (Nov 22/04) - The whooping crane flock in Wood Buffalo National Park has lost two birds to hunters from Kansas.

One migrating bird died and another was seriously wounded when they were mistaken for sandhill cranes earlier this month.

They had been heading to wintering grounds in Texas.

Whoopers are larger and a brilliant white, while sandhills are grey.

As of Friday, Brian Johns, a whooping crane expert with the Canadian Wildlife Service in Saskatoon, said it is uncertain if the injured bird would survive.

Even if it did, Johns said it has a broken wing and would likely be kept in captivity in the future.

"It's unfortunate," he said. "Every bird, when the population is so low, is critical to the genetics of the flock."

Johns said as of Nov. 10, 142 whoopers from Wood Buffalo had reached Texas and about 60 were still migrating.

The Wood Buffalo flock loses about 10 per cent of its adults each year to old age, disease and accidents.

However, the overall population has been growing as young are born and may reach 200 when an official count is made at the end of the year.

Johns noted hunters occasionally kill a whooper, the last one being in Texas two years ago.

"There could be others we don't know about," he said.

There are only about 450 whooping cranes in existence, both in the wild and in captivity.