George Archibald was awarded the $100,000 Lufkin Prize from National Audubon in recognition of his long career in conservation. It’s Archibald, as much as anyone, who is responsible for the whooping crane’s long, slow climb back from the brink of extinction. A pivotal moment in that return can be traced back 37 years, to an individual whooping crane going through an identity crisis.
In 1973, when cranes were in a perilous situation and many of the fifteen remaining species were on the brink of extinction, Archibald founded the International Crane Foundation in Baraboo, Wisconsin. He was Director from 1973 to 2000. Currently he heads a World Conservation Union commission on crane survival. Forty years later, the world's cranes are still in a perilous situation. Archibald pioneered several techniques to rear cranes in captivity, including the use of crane costumes by human handlers. Archibald spent three years with a highly endangered whooping crane named Tex, acting as a male crane – walking, calling, dancing – to shift her into reproductive condition. Through his dedication and the use of artificial insemination, Tex eventually laid a fertile egg. As Archibald later recounted the tale on The Tonight Show he stunned the audience and host Johnny Carson with the sad end of the story – the death of Tex shortly after the hatching of her one and only chick.
At the time, during 1976, Tex was only one of 100 whooping cranes (Grus americana) left in the world, and the only female whooping crane in her home at the San Antonio Zoo, so experts of a young crane breeding program were desperate to get her to produce offspring. But since Tex had been hand-raised in captivity by humans, and thus had been accidentally "imprinted" to believe that she was human, she refused to mate with any male whooping crane. This man spent several years acting as the mate of a female whooping crane - sleeping, dancing, and building nests with her - as part of an effort to save the species from extinction. And it worked!
Today Archibald continues his crane conservation work in North Korea, Africa, North America, and beyond, even as new challenges arise from sea-level rise, wind energy development, habitat destruction, and drought.In accepting the Lufkin Prize last night, Archibald shared the spotlight with the many crane conservationists he has worked with at the International Crane Foundation, which celebrates its 40th anniversary this year.There was another occasion on Archibald’s mind as well: Gee Whiz’s 30th birthday. Tex’s little chick has grown to father many offspring, including a female that this year became the first of her lineage to breed in the wild. “I call her my great grandchick,” jokes Archibald. “She winters with my granddaughter on Goose Lake, in Indiana. I think about them a lot.”Further ReadingThe Man Who Saves Cranes
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