The ‘lily of birds’: the success story of the Siberian white crane

Abstract

In 1985 the Worldlife Fund's Gold Medal, its highest honour, was awarded to George Archibald, Director and co-founder with Ron Sauey of the International Crane Foundation at Baraboo, Wisconsin, which has achieved so much for the world's endangered cranes. Their most remarkable success story—and an outstanding example of international conservation efforts across political boundaries—is surely that of the beautiful Siberian white crane Grus leucogeranus. It is a story, too, of astonishingly recent discovery, as they told this writer on a recent visit to Baraboo.