I believe just historically the ethos has been, not to report with
specificity for any species as endangered as this... And that in the past
the International Crane Foundation would rather the cranes' privacy be
maintained, if I'm remembering correctly. Some states like Louisiania do
have some guidelines about reporting to social media (largely don't with
any specificity, and if you do, then only the county/parish level). It's
often hard to gauge an animal's condition or 'apprehension', ICF guidelines
are:
Do not approach birds on foot within 200 yards; remain in your vehicle; do
not approach in a vehicle any closer than 100 yards.
• Please remain concealed and do not speak loudly enough that the birds can
hear you.
• If the cranes you are viewing change their behavior, such as going from
feeding and relaxing to being alert, walking away, or flying away, you are
too close to the cranes.
• Do not trespass on private property in an attempt to view or photograph
Whooping Cranes.
Unfortunately they do not specify whether or not to make the observation
public...but one would presume that best practices/ethics would be to
protect the bird from harassment and not report with any great specificity
or not until the bird has left the area. And weirdly while ebird has not
hidden the crane points of where this has been seen in Iowa, it does hide
the pins of in-year crane sightings in Nebraska and along the route between
Aransas and Wood Buffalo per their sensitive species policy (presumably
they score the Wood Buffalo birds as 'more sensitive' than the Wisconsin
birds...which is...a take I suppose).
Jacob
Ottosen, IA
On Wednesday, April 8, 2026 at 5:32:30 PM UTC-5 <fawn......> wrote:
> Ebird does not hide their (Whooping Crane) location and you can see them
> fairly easily in Florida when they're overwintering there. I would assume
> that because ebird does not hide their location that they're not as easily
> disturbed as you're assuming? Do you have some source for this
> assumption? For this particular crane, he does not seem to mind respectful
> humans, at a distance anyway....
>
> Fawn in Riverside
>
> On Wednesday, April 8, 2026 at 9:42:33 AM UTC-5 prairiechick45 wrote:
>
>> I thought because Whooping Cranes are extreme rare and highly monitored
>> their exact location was not supposed to be posted on birding hot lines or
>> Facebook, only to places like International Crane Foundation or even to
>> E-Bird which usually hides the exact location. The reasoning is that
>> Whooping Cranes usually attract a lot of attention which can be both
>> disturbing and upsetting to the cranes.
>> It is still alright to post one was found in Linn county but not report
>> exactly the street location. It should be reported to one of the crane
>> monitoring groups.
>> Thanks,
>> Barbara Miller
>> Des Moines
>>
>> Sent from my iPad
>>
>> On Apr 7, 2026, at 7:33 PM, <rrki......> <rrki......> wrote:
>>
>> At 7:00 pm, in cornfield on west side of C Ave NE, in front of Hallmar
>> Village.
>>
>> --
>> Post by sending an email to <ia-......>
>> To search for an unfamiliar location, go to
>> https://iowabirds.org/Places/FindLocation.aspx >> This list is sponsored by the Iowa Ornithologists' Union -
>> https://iowabirds.org/ - with membership open to all people interested
>> in the birds of Iowa. Join today at
>> https://iowabirds.org/IOU/Membership.aspx.
>> IOU Code of Birding Ethics - https://iowabirds.org/Pages.aspx?pg=6 >> ---
>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
>> "IA-BIRD" group.
>> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an
>> email to ia-bird+<u......>
>> To view this discussion visit
>> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/ia-bird/<8b0ef106-7014-4dc0-ae95-00142290d94dn...> >> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/ia-bird/<8b0ef106-7014-4dc0-ae95-00142290d94dn...>?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> >> .
>>
>>
