Travel Wisconsin

The human spirit: Wisconsin’s conservation heroes

There is a collective conscience in Wisconsin that values wild beauty.

Travel Wisconsin

Pioneering naturalist Aldo Leopold’s 1949 book “A Sand County Almanac” is reverential reading on his vision of a land ethic, how caring for people cannot be separated from caring for the land. The Aldo Leopold Foundation in Baraboo has preserved the original “shack,” an abandoned chicken coop where Leopold and his family lived on weekends, and the hundreds of acres of surrounding land celebrated in that book. Learn how to be a better land steward when you tour, take a class or join in an event.

International Crane Foundation

Today, there is George Archibald, co-founder of the International Crane Foundation in Baraboo, the only place in the world to see the complete collection of all 15 species of cranes. By name, one could deduce the foundation’s mission is to preserve endangered species of cranes, and it is that, with 11 species facing extinction, but it is about so much more than that.

“Cranes are ambassadors for preservation of wetlands and grasslands worldwide, instilling international cooperation along migratory routes”, said Archibald. “The most gratifying success for me was to have helped establish this organization that extends goodwill around the world on the wings of cranes.”

Archibald and Ron Sauey of Baraboo were fellow graduate students in ornithology at Cornell University who shared a passion for cranes. They envisioned an organization that would safeguard the world’s crane species. In 1973, with the generosity of Sauey’s family who rented their horse farm in Baraboo to them for $1 a year, they formed the International Crane Foundation.

“With the world so divided today on so many issues, it’s important to have a common interest of conservation, and the cranes are something everyone agrees we should protect,” said Archibald.

He went on to say that visiting the foundation is like taking a trip around the world. “For each species there are stories that bring you to different continents. The cranes bring the world to you.”

The Foundation has just embarked on a $10 million expansion and facelift, to be completed in 2020.