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Travels with George: Ethiopia 2015

While vociferousness is typically associated with cranes – “the trumpet in the orchestra of evolution” to quote Aldo Leopold – one of the largest of the 15 species, the Wattled Crane of Africa, is usually silent. Occasionally one might hear a piercing high-pitched Guard Call or Flight Call and on extremely rare occasions a short duet or Unison Call by a mated pair that lasts but a few seconds. If you are close to a pair or family of Wattled Cranes, one can frequently hear the low burr-like Contact Call, perhaps an expression of proximity and assurance.

ICF Receives Disney Conservation Grants


ICF has been awarded two $25,000 grants from the Disney Worldwide Conservation Fund (DWCF). The conservation grants recognize ICF’s efforts to protect critical habitats for threatened cranes while engaging local communities in Vietnam and South Africa.

The EWT and ICF Celebrate 40 Years of Saving Cranes and Communities

The Endangered Wildlife Trust (EWT) and the International Crane Foundation (ICF), who have been cross-continental partners since 1994, both celebrated 40 years of pioneering conservation action in 2013. The EWT’s African Crane Conservation Programme (EWT-ACCP) and the ICF formalized their working arrangement in 2006, and since then the partnership has gone on to deliver real and positive impacts on the status of cranes and communities across the African continent.

Travels with George: Zambia Winter 2013

Together with ICF’s excellent colleague, Griffin Shanungu of the Zambia Wildlife Authroity, I recently had the privilege of spending four days in Lochinvar National Park (LNP) in central Zambia, a park that includes about 8 percent of the acreage of the vast Kafue Flats – a floodplain of the Kafue River and a major habitat for Wattled Cranes.

Planning Big for Zambezi River Wetlands

Zambia is the third leg of my travels in Africa and a perfect final destination. Zambia is truly a wetland paradise, with eight “Wetlands of International Importance” under the Ramsar Convention covering a surface area of nearly 40,000 square kilometers. These include some of the most important wetlands in Africa for cranes.

Travels in Ethiopia

Following a trail blazed by German crane colleagues and through transportation gratis ICF’s official Airline, Lufthansa, I spent nineteen memorable days in Ethiopian landscapes and sunshine. The visit perhaps will, with good fortune, result in the acceleration in the study and conservation of wetlands vital to more than 1,368 Black Crowned Cranes and 213 Wattled Cranes and uncountable thousands (for me at least) of migrant Eurasian Cranes that we observed.

Major Conservation Victory in Mozambique!

The International Crane Foundation (ICF), together with World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and the Museum of Natural History and other key partners in Mozambique, congratulate the Government of Mozambique for their wise decision to not allow the dredging of the lower Zambezi River and Delta for coal barging.

ICF’s President and CEO, Dr. Richard Beilfuss, was deeply involved in preparing the Environmental Impact Assessment and subsequent communications with the Mozambique Ministry of Environment concerning the need for a holistic, ecosystems approach to Zambezi River basin development.