The current official list of Ohio birds does not contain the Whooping
Crane. A small group of what became the first Ohio Bird Records
Committee, led by Bruce Peterjohn, would not accept Grus americana for
the state list despite numerous records of Ohio whoopers, all because no
specimen was known to be well established in a museum setting.
        There are quite a few whoopers in major Ohio museum collections, but it
seems they all lack adequate documentation, which would include attached
data on location and date of collection, and name of collector at least.
It is the lack of collectors' names that frequently invalidates Ohio
specimens with otherwise good data.
        Mary Bannon of Portsmouth in Scioto County collected and prepared a
large taxidermic exhibit of the birds of her region for the 1888 Ohio
State Fair, which included a whooping crane (Wheaton Bulletin
1902 9(3):77-92), a passenger pigeon, etc.  Henninger (Wilson Bulletin
14(3):81) reported a crane as "A rare transient. One specimen taken on
the banks of the Scioto River, in Scioto County; in the collection of
Mrs. Mary E. Bannon. One was kept in captivity in Waverly (Pike County)
for a number of years." Just one example.
          The southwestern portion of Ohio was within the migratory route of
whooping cranes, and while there are records elsewhere in Ohio, most
records come from there. Thanks to the staff at the Cincinnati Museum, I
have the names of some persons in Ohio who collected whooping cranes and
donated them to the Museum in the 1890s; unfortunately no specimens at
the Museum have their names attached.
I'm hoping data from them will make it possible to add this species to
the Ohio list after all these years. Information about this topic from
others would be welcomed!
Bill Whan

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