History
ICF began in 1973 as a dream shared by two enthusiastic young men, Ron Sauey and George Archibald, who met as graduate students in ornithology at Cornell University. The dream was to save the world’s cranes and that idea has been the driving force behind ICF ever since.
ICF’s first home was a horse farm near Baraboo, Wisconsin, leased to them for $1 a year. They set to work and converted the barns into crane pens and work areas. Then Sauey and Archibald contacted zoos all over the world, asking to borrow cranes for the foundation’s breeding program. Cranes and crane eggs arrived from Japan, Europe, the former USSR and North America. The crane population at Baraboo began to grow and chicks began hatching.
Volunteers, townspeople and graduate students came to help. When Archibald and Sauey were not working in Baraboo, they were traveling to the places where cranes lived, where they began to establish friendships and research connections. Sauey traveled to India while Archibald visited Korea, Japan and Australia. Within a few short years, the outlines of an international network for crane conservation began to take shape. Under the catalytic influence of ICF, South Korean, Indian, Chinese and Japanese governments took steps to improve existing crane sanctuaries and create new ones. At Baraboo, ICF continued its studies of crane behavior, breeding and nutrition. What started as a dream was becoming a reality.
ICF's early history is excerpted with permission
Read more about this topic: International Crane Foundation
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“Tell me of the height of the mountains of the moon, or of the diameter of space, and I may believe you, but of the secret history of the Almighty, and I shall pronounce thee mad.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
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