Group: Feds hid plans to weaken whooping crane protection

FILE - A whooping crane flies over the Aransas Wildlife Refuge in Fulton, Texas, Dec. 17, 2011. Scientists are concerned a devastating drought could hurt the recovery of the 300 endangered whooping cranes that winter in Texas. An environmental group says the Biden administration has made secret plans to weaken protection for the world's rarest crane. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says it has not decided whether to propose reclassifying whooping cranes from endangered to threatened. The Center for Biological Diversity says documents obtained through open records requests show that agency officials "seem to have been deliberately misleading the public” about their plans. (AP Photo/Pat Sullivan)