Rose Elizondo
Rose grew up in South Texas and studied elementary education at UT Austin. Rose’s ancestry has centuries-old connections to the South Texas coastal bend where the Whooping Cranes migrate each year.
Rose developed a lifelong passion for Whooping Cranes on a 6th grade field trip to the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge. Now, over 40 years later, she is still enthralled by whooping cranes. Rose collaborated to write the Karankawa section of Harmonious Migrations, an elementary school curriculum about the whooping crane’s flight path and Indigenous peoples.
Her hope is for all people to cultivate a deep reverence and care for Whooping Cranes. Cranes symbolize peace. As a national leader and movement builder in Indigenous peacemaking and restorative justice, Rose emphasizes that restorative principles and our profound interconnectedness can enhance our understanding of mutually affirming coexistence with nature and whooping cranes.
Talk: Exploring the Relationships Between Whooping Cranes and Indigenous Peoples in South Texas: Historical Perspectives and Cultural Artifacts
Since time immemorial, Whooping Cranes and Indigenous peoples have coexisted along the Texas Gulf coast.
The Indigenous people of the Coastal Bend did not leave a written record of their lifeways and practices. They did leave behind their cultural artifacts like pottery shards, arrowheads, musical instruments, and jewelry fragments which now serve as archaeological records. Artifacts along the whooping crane migration path offer hints of the connections between Indigenous people and whooping cranes dating back thousands of years.
What concrete ways can we promote conservation and eco-stewardship along the migratory flight paths of the whooping cranes?