Lawrence Harvey Walkinshaw (1904-1993) …Who accomplished more, and for longer than any, to save three endangered species

Walkinshaw was born to Calhoun County, Michigan pioneer families on February 25, 1904. Birds fascinated him by age “five or six”, he said. After attending a one-room school, Bellevue High School and Olivet College, he earned an Honors degree in dental surgery from the University Michigan. Dr. Walkinshaw started a dental practice in Battle Creek in 1929. His practice spanned forty-years concurrent with leadership in Boy Scouts of America, Battle Creek Lions Club and three Michigan Dental Societies. In 1931, he and Clara May Cartland were married.  The Walkinshaws had two children James and Wendy.

Recognized as “The Father of International Studies of Gruiformes” in 1975, ‘Walkinshaw’ and cranes became synonymous. The Walkinshaw Wetlands, a 4,500-acre preserve within the Huron-Manistee National Forest and The Walkinshaw Award, the highest recognition attainable for crane scientists are among his honors. He served as Wilson Society President (1958-60) and held offices in Michigan’s Audubon Society and other ornithological organizations.

Walkinshaw, however, was not into honors or officiating. His passion was saving endangered species with knowledge, and by aiding worldwide habitat restoration. His forte was stalking reclusive birds from the Artic to Africa seeking nests to reveal their secrets. Presidents of leading ornithology societies proclaimed him the “greatest bird-nest finder of all time” and the “model” life history scholar on cranes, warblers and sparrows. Fieldwork for this self-financed amateur birder began before sunrise… tabulating data, typing and editing late into the night. He published nearly 400 works.

Larry considered the 1941 establishment of Michigan Audubon Society’s Baker Sanctuary his greatest achievement. Greater sandhill cranes numbered fewer than forty nesting pairs in the US in 1931 when Larry first discovered a nest there. He proclaimed it “a sight of cranes that completely changed my life.” He published The Sandhill Cranes (1949) followed by The Cranes of the World in 1973, both landmark volumes. These and related works established the foundation for all future crane restoration programs. Five-thousand or more Sandhills now roost at Baker Sanctuary during CraneFest each October.

His whooping crane rescue efforts were as intimate as with sandhills. Rather than accept leadership of the bi-national Audubon Society research program in 1947, he instead volunteered. He searched for their Canadian nesting grounds, captured the first pictures of active nests in Wood Buffalo National Park, studied them at Aransas National Wildlife Refuge, provided the first sandhills to be used as surrogates for whooper egg incubation, helped charter the Whooping Crane Conservation Association, and served on three national recovery committees.

Simultaneous with crane studies, Walkinshaw conducted extensive fieldwork on Kirtland’s warblers in Michigan and the Bahamas. He was the first to band one, and later established Kirtland’s genealogies, studied cowbird infestation control and habitat restoration techniques culminating in “Kirtland’s Warbler: The Natural History of An Endangered Species (1983)” and “Nest Observations of The Kirtland’s Warbler (1988).”

Lowell M. Schake, Ph. D.

Port Aransas, Texas

Book details:

On the Wings of Cranes: Larry Walkinshaw’s Life Story

Lowell M. Schake, PhD, Author

James R. Walkinshaw, Editor

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