SHORT STORY In June 2002, I had the privilege of visiting the United States on a lecture tour with Dr. George Archibald, Co-Founder of the International Crane Foundation and Dr. Lam Dorji, Executive Director the Royal Society for the Protection of Nature to raise money for RSPN’s endowment fund. We toured 15 cities in 29 days and presented over 34 shows.

During one of our rare free moments, George took us to visit the Bronx Zoo in New York. The Bronx Zoo is the biggest zoo in the world and exhibits included almost every animal that you could think about. We saw Bengal tigers, polar bears, black-necked cranes, and much more. After looking around for over an hour, George decided to take us to see some cranes that were not part of the exhibit. Since everyone knew George, we had no problems visiting “behind the scenes” and I was to witness something that has had a lasting impression on me. The moment the bird curator let us in into a large fenced area with some cranes, a white-naped crane ran towards us. George knelt down and this bird starting preening its neck against George, who had his hands around the crane. I was truly amazed with this behavior as I had never even imagined that birds could behave this way. I was extremely curious and pestered George to tell me more about this bird. Apparently, George only saw this crane a few times since 1971 but she never forgot him.