All the World's Cranes

As I was researching things to do in Wisconsin, I found our AZA membership covered the International Crane Foundation! This place was fantastic! They have ALL 15 species of cranes that exist around the world, ten of which are threatened or endangered. This is the only place where you can see all of them!

Grey-crowned Crane  (above)                           Sarus Crane (below)

Demoiselle Crane  (above)                           Wattled Crane (below)

We thought this might be a quick visit, but there was so much to see and learn. We have Sandhill Cranes in our yard and here we learned they have four types of calls.

And finally we came to the Whooping Cranes and the most interesting story.

Whooping Cranes are endangered. At one point there were only 21 wild birds left in the world! One of the International Crane Foundation founders, George Archibald, decided to try something unusual. He attempted to form a pair bond with Tex, a bird that had become imprinted on humans in a zoo. He moved his bed into her room, spoke to her and even danced with her, as cranes would do. Soon they began building a nest together and thanks to artificial insemination technology, she laid an egg. It was some years before her eggs became viable, but eventually she had a chick named, Gee Whiz. Sadly she was killed by raccoons shortly after, but Gee Whiz went on to father many cranes in breeding program that brought the total numbers up. In the fall after we were here, the 7 Florida birds dropped to 5 when one in our area found a Sandhill Crane girlfriend. Before they were able to reproduce, FWC moved him and his brother to Louisiana to be with other Whooping Cranes where they hope they'll breed.

You could spend anywhere from 45 minutes to half a day here depending on what you want to experience. We ended up spending three hours, and I could have stayed longer. We watched a beautiful film, read the displays and visited all 15 cranes. Some were in their walled enclosure, so we looped back around a second time and waited for them to come outside. Eventually they did. This is a great place doing great work to save cranes and improve their habitat around the world. They have a nice gift shop too.