Whooping cranes reach sexual maturity at 4 years and and choose one mate for life. The courtship of the whoopers begins in late winter to early spring and consists of loud vocalizations, wing flapping, head bowing, strutting and tremendous leaps into the air by one or both birds. This dance is also used to defend territory. Both the male and female whoopers share in the task of incubating the two large eggs that the female lays. Usually, only one of the two chicks is reared.
Chicks swim as soon as they hatch and can fly within three months.
The whooping crane's choice of migration routes, nesting locations and wintering routes is learned behavior rather than innate. Young birds learn these routes by following their parents on the first migration. Some conservation experts have suggested that whooping cranes bred in captivity may be able to learn their migration routes by following humans driving trucks or light aircraft. In 1975, at Grays Lake National Wildlife Refuge in Idaho, whooping crane egss were placed in the nests of sandhill cranes. Sandhill cranes then reared the whooping crane chicks as their own teaching them feeding habits and imprinting the sandhill crane's new 850-mile migratory path to the Bosque Del Apache National Wildlife in New Mexico.