A Lift for Endangered Cranes

By Natalie Angier.

They are among the world's more engaging birds, with vanilla-white stomachs, dark throats, and bodies that arc down from their wings at takeoff like giant commas. They are also among the rarest: only an estimated 700 to 900 black- necked cranes survive in the wild, most of them living on the 10,000-ft.- high plateaus in the northwestern region of Tibetan China. As humans encroach on their nesting and wintering grounds, the number of birds continues to dwindle, and officials of the People's Republic of China fear that the species may become extinct.

Now China is acknowledging that the best hope for these reclusive and mysterious creatures may lie in the unlikely locale of Baraboo, Wis. That is the site of the International Crane Foundation, operated by Ornithologist George Archibald, 38, the world's leading authority on cranes, who has had extraordinary success breeding the birds in captivity. Last week, in the company of a Chinese official, a pair of 4 1/2-ft.-tall black-necks arrived at Archibald's headquarters to further test his matchmaking skills. Says Archibald of the female Lan-lan (which means flower) and the male Yang-yang (sun): "They are birds of the superlative."

The arrival of the cranes is symbolic of a 180 degrees turnaround in China's attitudes toward birds and indeed much of its wildlife. In 1959 Mao Tse-tung, then Chairman of the Communist Party, declared a "people's war" against the despised "four pests": rats, flies, mosquitoes and, especially, sparrows, which he said consumed too much of the nation's farm crops. Entire villages took to the road, yelling lustily, banging on pots, pans and gongs, and lighting firecrackers; the sparrows were frightened from their roosts and not allowed to realight. Recalls Chinese Ornithologist Tao Yaokuang, who was forced to take part in the program: "The idea was to harass them so they would be on their wings the whole day till they literally dropped dead." Sparrows were not the only birds to perish in the melee. Cranes, ibis and eagles, among others, were driven to near extinction by reckless pesticide spraying, pollution and the destruction of forests. Even today the woods around Peking remain eerily silent.

Since 1978, however, China has been waging an equally fierce campaign to save its unique wildlife. Some 260 new nature reserves, covering 60,000 sq. mi., have been established. The government is taking a strong-arm approach to conservation: two fishermen were jailed recently for killing three endangered river dolphins, and two factory workers were fined for shooting one of China's twelve known ibis. Says Archibald, "I'm so impressed by what the Chinese have done. Before 1979 they didn't even know where the birds were."

Archibald's attentions are now focused solely on the newest arrivals to Baraboo, and if anybody can ignite their ardor, he can. As a kind of Don Juan of the Audubon set, he won fame in 1978 for tempting a female whooping crane to ovulate by imitating the elaborate courtship dances of the male. His installation has housed representatives of all 15 species of crane and has successfully overseen the hatching of rare chicks since 1975.

Though much remains to be learned about the black-neck's mating habits, Archibald does not anticipate the need for a repeat performance of his avian minuets. "We have all the therapy we need to get the cranes turned on," he says. Still, Archibald has developed something of a crush on one of the black- necks. "Lan-lan is such a sweetie," he says. "When I first met her, she came over and started preening and chirping. It was as if we were old friends."

With reporting by Barbara B. Dolan/Baraboo and Jaime A. FlorCruz/Peking