Daily-ist Tuesday: Cranes Have No Political Boundaries

In the absence of human intervention, the Korean demilitarized zone, which for 50 years has served as the divider between North and South Korea, has developed into one of the last untouched wildlife refuges in the world.

The DMZ, which is on average 2.5 miles wide and 155 miles long, is a haven of biodiversity, and is home to many rare and endangered animals, including two of the world's most endangered birds: the white-naped crane and the red-crowned crane.

George Archibald, founder of the International Crane Foundation, will talk about the preservation of these two creatures in a lecture tonight at the Rothko Chapel.

Archibald, who has pioneered several techniques to raise cranes with human surrogates, has traveled throughout the world to work for preservation. Tonight he will talk about his travels to North Korea, where he worked to provide a safe winter haven for red-crowned cranes. The bird is a Korean icon, and represents good luck to people on both sides of the peninsula. Wikipedia calls it the second-rarest crane in the world.

Lecture: "Cranes Have No Political Boundaries"
Admission: Free
Date and Time: 7 p.m. tonight
Location: Rothko Chapel, 1409 Sul Ross, 77006

Photo courtesy of flickr user joyrex