Court reverses ruling on whooping cranes' deaths

A federal appellate court Monday reversed a 2013 U.S. District Court decision that found the state responsible for killing 23 whooping cranes by withholding water from the lower reaches of the Guadalupe River where the endangered birds spend winter. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled the Guadalupe-Blanco River Authority and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality were not responsible because the deaths were not foreseeable as a result of the state’s water policy on freshwater inflows into the San Antonio Bay system. Read more at Corpus Christi Caller Times…