Name: "What Have We Done to Deserve All These Cranes?" In-Person Badger Talk in La Crosse, WI
Start: 2025-10-12T13:00:00-05:00
Location: 789 Myrick Park Dr, La Crosse, WI 54601, United States

"What Have We Done to Deserve All These Cranes?" In-Person Badger Talk in La Crosse, WI

This is a free, in-person Badger Talk hosted by the La Crosse County Historical Society as a part of their Community History Talks series. Registration will be available online: https://www.lchshistory.org/programs-experiences
In recent years islands and sandbars along the Wisconsin River have hosted ever-growing numbers of Greater Sandhill Cranes as they prepare to depart for their wintering areas. Flocks of upwards of 10,000 birds converge on the stretch of the river above and below the Aldo Leopold’s Shack each fall. That’s a large proportion of the cranes that now nest in Wisconsin. Why has there been such an impressive resurgence in the crane population since Aldo Leopold worried about its impending extirpation 80 years ago, and what attracts all these birds to the vicinity of the Shack? Professor Stan Temple will review the remarkable recovery of Midwestern sandhill cranes, describe their migratory behavior and discuss some of the recent controversies, such as crane hunting, that have attended their new status as an abundant bird.
Stanley (Stan) Temple is the Beers-Bascom Professor Emeritus in Conservation in the Department of Forest and Wildlife Ecology at UW–Madison. For 32 years he held the academic position once occupied by Aldo Leopold. He is currently a Senior Fellow with the Aldo Leopold Foundation. He and his students have helped save some of world’s most endangered species and the habitats on which they depend. He has received major conservation awards from the Society for Conservation Biology, The Wildlife Society, and the Wisconsin Society for Ornithology. Among other recognitions of his achievements, he is a Fellow of the American Ornithological Society, Explorers Club, Wildlife Conservation Society, American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters. He has been President of the Society for Conservation Biology and Chairman of the Board of The Nature Conservancy in Wisconsin. He was recently inducted into the Wisconsin Conservation Hall of Fame.