Park officials on Thursday said they will receive at least one whooping crane for educational display, becoming only the sixth public facility in North America to hold that honor.

"It's phenomenal," said Tom Linley, manager of Homosassa Springs Wildlife State Park. "We'll be one of the few places in the world where people can go and be guaranteed to see a whooping crane."

The decision was made earlier this month during a meeting of the Whooping Crane Recovery Team, a coalition of American and Canadian experts working to revitalize the crane population, which hovers around 400.

In an e-mail to Linley on Wednesday, a selection committee said the park could be awarded a second crane based on the success with the first bird.

At 5 feet, an adult whooping crane is the largest bird in North America and one of the most stunning - with a 7-foot, black-tipped wingspan and a patch of red on its head.

Homosassa was selected for several reasons, the committee said, including the quality of its displays and the proximity to an experimental flock of wild cranes that winters in Chassahowitzka.

Those birds were hatched in a laboratory and trained to follow an ultralight aircraft, then guided from Wisconsin to Florida, arriving in November.

The novelty of the ultralight method generated widespread attention but for now, researchers want to keep the cranes far from humans to ensure they establish natural migratory patterns.

Public awareness, however, is critical to the success of the recovery effort, and a bird or two in Homosassa could go a long way, said Michael Putnam, a recovery team member and curator of birds at the International Crane Foundation in Wisconsin.

"It's going to be a big draw," Linley said. The park is unsure when the bird will arrive but expects it will be this year.

Putnam said the crane will come from a captive flock of about 119 birds in various breeding centers in the United States and Canada.

Given the scarcity of whooping cranes, some genetic lines have become overrepresented, creating "surplus" birds. "Their parents or grandparents have produced a lot of offspring," Putnam said.

In awarding Homosassa Springs Wildlife State Park a whooping crane, the selection committee made six recommendations to protect the bird and encourage public education.

One stipulation calls for making the display safe from predators by using electric fencing and a overhead net, which would also keep the crane from flying away.

Another requires a section of the pen to be shielded from the road to allow the crane a more private and quite place.

The state park, aided by Ron Miller of the Citrus County Audubon Society, has been lobbying for a whooping crane for about two years.