In late December 2012, ICF’s Li Fengshan, Ms. Chan Yun-Wen from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Ms. Hu Yabin from Beijing No. 39 Secondary School traveled to Caohai Nature Reserve, wintering area for Black-necked and Eurasian Cranes in southwest China.
Since my first visit in 1976 to what I consider to be the world’s most beautiful bird park, Weltvogelpark, it has always been my favorite destination in Europe. It’s located in the countryside not far from Hanover in northwest Germany. It’s former owners, Wolf and Uschi Brehm, became close friends, provided financial support to ICF during those early lean years, and loaned two elderly male Siberian Cranes to ICF.
A long flight from Seoul to Moscow landed me in Russia October 5, 2011 to spend 12 days with nearly 90 colleagues from 15 nations. Eight nations were former republics of the USSR. We had gathered in Volgograd just north of the Caspian Sea for an international conference “Cranes of the Palearctic: Biology, Conservation, Management (in Memory of P. S. Pallas).”
ICF colleague Jigme Tshering of the Royal Society for the Protection of Nature in Bhutan participated in a three-week training program this summer with Crane Conservation Germany.