It’s Crane City Health Check Day. Two dozen people work hands-on to conduct annual health checks on the 65-plus cranes in the captive flock at the ICF campus in Baraboo, Wisconsin. This long-standing tradition is led by the ICF aviculture staff with support from University of Wisconsin vet students, interns, and other volunteers.

Lead veterinarian Barry Hartup was an intern at ICF in 1984 when he decided to make this his career. Because cranes are long-lived birds, the annual health check offers a rare opportunity for the staff to examine individual birds up close for new or chronic issues that can’t be seen from a distance. It also allows assessment of the overall health of the flock by checking for signs of stress, management concerns, and pathogens such as avian influenza and West Nile virus.

The day also engages the next generation of young people interested in cranes, aviculture, and veterinary science. Most of the 15 crane species are handled, but whooping cranes represent the highest percentage of the ICF captive flock, with more than 20 adult birds.

ICF’s Crane City is designed like a small housing subdivision with 60 “houses” and individual yards separated by chain-link fencing. Four streets divide the houses into blocks. On Health Check Day, four inspection stations are set up on one street, and birds are examined block by block. Each station includes a veterinarian and a support team of handlers and students. When operations run smoothly, there are no waiting lines—important because they aim to minimize handling time to just 10 to 15 minutes per crane.

The process involves capturing each crane by hand in their house, hooding it, transporting them by golf cart to the inspection station, and performing a health check—weight, measurements, blood draw—before returning the bird to their home. Once all residents on a street have been checked, the team moves to the next block. The entire operation takes eight to ten hours.