Taking the world’s largest known Sarus Crane population under your wing can’t be easy, but K.S. Gopi Sundar, wildlife conservationist, did just that. He was at the Wildlife Institute of India in Dehradun in 1998 when he discovered that Uttar Pradesh was home to the largest population of the Sarus. He found that the bird in southwestern UP didn’t go for seasonal migration, and that breeding pairs maintained territories throughout the year. Subsequently, his work in the area helped establish how the state, especially Etawah and Mainpuri districts, was a unique habitat where cranes thrived alongside farming and farmers.