Two local species headed for extinction?

Houstonist apparently doesn't keep up with wildlife as much as we should — we didn't know the Houston area is home to two of 27 endangered species on the brink of extinction. The whooping crane and the Houston toad (which we'd never even heard of) are not only endangered, but exist in only one place on Earth, so researchers argue action should be taken immediately to protect them.

The last 216 whooping cranes in the world live at the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge near Rockport, and most of the remaining Houston toads live around Lost Pines in Bastrop County. Though the cranes live in an protected area, the Aransas refuge is being surrounded by subdivisions and coastal marshes are threatened by river development. Houston toads vanished from Houston in the 1960s and have been wiped out in three other counties; now, in Bastrop County, they're threatened by Austin's suburbs.

The problem is that the protection (directly or indirectly) of many endangered species is up to private developers, who either own the land on which the animals live or land surrounding protected habitats. That means the future of some species is up to the same people who are happiest when they pave everything in sight? Uh-oh.