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 ______________________________________________________________________ Ohio-birds mailing list, a service of the Ohio Ornithological Society. Please consider joining our Society, at www.ohiobirds.org/site/membership.php. Our thanks to Miami University for hosting this mailing list. You can join or leave the list, or change your options, at: listserv.miamioh.edu/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=OHIO-BIRDS Send questions or comments about the list to: [log in to unmask]