"A Winter in Hokkaido," photographs by Vincent Munier
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"A Winter in Hokkaido," photographs by Vincent Munier
Originally published 2006-05-22

The International Crane Foundation (ICF) announces the opening of the Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Family Education Center with the exhibition, A Winter in Hokkaido," featuring the French wildlife photographer Vincent Munier's intimate study of Red-Crowned Cranes and the other rare large birds that winter on Hokkaido, Japan's northern island. Each summer ICF will host art exhibits that support and interpret its conservation work in this new gallery space. The Education Center also features an interpretive display on the cranes of the world and the challenges they face. The show will be up from June 3 to September 15 and is free with the cost of admission to ICF.

The story of Hokkaido's cranes is a study in the interdependence of people and the wildlife they revere. The Red-crowned Crane is an iconic symbol spanning centuries of traditional art, from woodblock prints and painted screens to kimonos and origami. But when longstanding restrictions against hunting the birds relaxed in the late 19th century, they were all but exterminated. When a few dozen birds turned up in a remote part of Hokkaido in the 1920s, they were declared a National Monument and protected. During the unusually cold winter of 1952, Hokkaido's Red-crowned Cranes were again endangered, but local schoolchildren fed them corn, inaugurating what has since become a popular government program, helping the cherished birds through the island's harshest season, when temperatures can reach -30F. The island's crane population now numbers 1,100 birds.

In 1972 Dr. George Archibald, Co-founder of ICF, conducted the first aerial survey of Hokkaido's cranes, proving his theory that – contrary to longstanding local supposition – the majority of the island's cranes did not migrate to mainland Asia to breed, but inhabited the island year-round, raising their young in secluded wetlands. (Migratory populations of Red-crowned Cranes inhabit portions of China, Korea and Siberia.) Many of the wetlands where Dr. Archibald found crane nests were zoned for development. His discovery, along with dedicated activism on the part of Japanese and ICF conservationists, caused many of these important wetlands to be preserved. Hokkaido remains a pilgrimage site for bird lovers, and an object lesson in enlightened wildlife management and science-based conservation.

The French wildlife photographer Vincent Munier is featured regularly in National Geographic; one of his pictures of Hokkaido's cranes led off the magazine's April 2004 story on cranes and ICF's efforts to reintroduce crane populations on threatened flyways. Twice in recent years (2000 and 2005), he has won commendations in the prestigious Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition hosted by the Natural History Museum in London. Victor Munier's book on Hokkaido's cranes, Tancho (Castor & Pollux, 2004), is available in the ICF gift shop, along with two high-quality posters of his crane studies. To learn more about this book, click here!

"I think a successful photo is one in which the photographer has earned his subject's trust over time, through respect and patience. I try to participate in such rare moments and to help others consider the importance and the fragility of the wild world all around us." – Vincent Munier
 
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