In Louisiana MILLIONS of dollars have also been spent to reintroduce white-tailed deer, wild turkeys, alligators, bring back populations of wood ducks to huntable numbers, the list goes on...thats just for huntable game. These are just a few success stories, there are many many more.
Hard to believe with all the alligators we see now, that they were almost hunted to extinction. Hard to believe that not that long ago the brown pelican was thought to be extirpated from Louisiana (not a single one in Louisiana) yet look at what happened after reintroduction efforts
You can't hunt a pelican, but they are part of our natural heritage (as are whooping cranes), hell the pelican is on our state flag, would be kinda ironic if we didn't have them (and we didn't for a period of time)
I have a book and can link some info if someone is really interested and (not trolling like Spunt Drag
)
BUT, Louisiana had both a resident population and a wintering population of whoopers. Per the book "It has been surmised that the tallgrass prairie of of Louisiana supported more Whooping Cranes than any other region of the country (Allen 1952). Allen (1952) roughly estimated that as many as 2,500 Whiiping Cranes could have wintered in this region"