The International Crane Foundation’s global headquarters in Baraboo, Wisconsin, houses a complete set of every crane species in the world. All fifteen crane species can be seen and admired at the Crane Discovery Center.

President and CEO of the International Crane Foundation, Rich Beilfuss, has a roundabout story that led him to ICF. A childhood in Chicago with blues music and exploring Forest Preserve woodlands in the city eventually led to a season of soul-searching through college, a particularly inspiring class, and a passion to study the Nepali language. Then commenced life in Nepal for a year at 20 years old. Rich was from then on hooked on global work, and returned for graduate school to become a hydrologist, inspired to clean water and better the environment for people and wildlife.

The introduction to ICF actually occurred through a Tai Chi class, where an instructor told students that cranes do Tai Chi with you! Wolf, a famous 80-year-old Siberian crane, paced and drooped his wings alongside Rich, a student in the class, who then wasn’t interpreting the threat behaviors as what they were, but simply as an incredible interaction. During the visit to ICF, Rich saw the birds in Baraboo, but really, it opened up his world. He learned of ICF’s international work, and about these birds that so heavily relied on water. After just one conversation pouring out his passions to George Archibald, Rich was sent on the spot to work in Vietnam for the foundation.

Three years of work as a graduate student restoring the population of sarus cranes, advocating to start a national park, and creating water management plans earned Rich a full-time position with ICF by 1992, where again, he was immediately sent overseas to attend a Black Crowned Crane meeting in Nigeria. The next 15 years blossomed into building the ICF program in Africa–tending to endangered species like the gray crowned crane, black crowned crane, blue crane, and wattled crane.

Over time, Rich ascended to the leadership role as CEO of the International Crane Foundation in 2009.

Omega (male) and Seurat (female) are the ambassador birds representing whooping cranes at the Crane Discovery Center. These two have been together since 2002. Omega is 29 years old and hatched from the very last egg collected from a nest in the wilds of Wood Buffalo National Park during a program in the 1990s to help build up captive-raised populations. Seurat is 27 years old. Both were hand-raised and have produced many young, fostered many others, and have been used in research and education. They are very intimate with each other, and dance for each other almost every evening.