conserving rocky mountain greater sandhill cranes + their habitat through science + education

The Greater Sandhill Crane is an iconic species of the Yampa Valley in Northwest Colorado. Returning in the spring from wintering grounds in New Mexico and Arizona, cranes nest and raise their young in wetland areas throughout the valley.

LATEST NEWS >

Double Your Impact this Giving Season:

 Just in time for Giving Tuesday (Dec. 3) and CO Gives Day (Dec. 10), a generous donor has offered a $5,000 matching grant to boost your donation to the crane cause dollar for dollar! Please consider making an investment in the future of Greater Sandhill Cranes. Your donation supports:

  • 3rd grade and community education programs
  • The Yampa Valley Crane Festival
  • The live-streaming Crane Nest Camera
  • Crops for Cranes habitat improvement projects, and more! 

Visit CCCC’s Colorado Gives page  by Dec. 10 to take advantage of this matching grant, or visit our support page to learn about more ways to donate. 

CCCC is grateful for your support!

 

The 2025 Crane-Inspired Creative Arts Scholarship Contest is Underway:

CCCC is excited to announce the launch of the Crane-Inspired Creative Arts Scholarship Contest (CASC) on Dec 1, 2024. This annual event is open to all high school seniors in Routt and Moffat Counties. This contest supports local high school students in pursuit of higher education through creative engagement with the arts while raising awareness of Greater Sandhill Cranes in the Yampa Valley.  

A total of $20,000 in scholarship funds will be awarded across 3 categories of art. The deadline for submission is February 18, 2025. Visit our CASC webpage for complete contest rules & information. 

 

 

 

Donor Recognition:

Thank you to the Yampa Valley Community Foundation for awarding CCCC a generous grant in the 2024-25 Community Grant Cycle. These funds help CCCC to continue to work on behalf of Sandhill cranes! We are grateful to the YVCF for their work to support important community efforts in the Yampa Valley. 

 

YAMPA VALLEY CRANE FESTIVAL

Thank you for attending the 13th annual festival. We hope you enjoyed your time in the Yampa Valley! Save the date for the 14th annual festival:

August 28 – 31, 2025

View the 4th season of the Crane Nest Camera:

Our appreciation for the crane grows with the slow unraveling of earthly history. His tribe, we now know, stems out of the remote Eocene. The other members of the fauna in which he originated are long since entombed within the hills. When we hear his call we hear no mere bird. We hear the trumpet in the orchestra of evolution. He is the symbol of our untamable past, of that incredible sweep of millennia which underlies and conditions the daily affairs of birds and men.

– Aldo Leopold, Sand County Almanac