Claire d'Loon

A 16-foot loon stands outside the chamber of commerce in Mercer, a small Wisconsin town that calls itself the Loon Capital of the World. UpNorthNews reported in 2024 that the nickname followed an environmental study finding the highest concentration of common loons in the world; the chamber’s president described it to the Daily Globe in 2013 more modestly, saying “Mercer has one of the larger concentrations of loons in the country,” and that the statue had become a mascot for the community. Claire d’Loon was set up on 22 May 1981 at a cost of about $10,000, the Daily Globe reported, and was named shortly afterwards from names residents suggested. She stands just over 16 feet tall and weighs about 2,000 pounds, and UpNorthNews notes that she cannot fly because she is cemented to the ground. A 2015 Travel Wisconsin feature called her the World’s Largest Talking Loon that speaks only in loon sounds. How she ranks by size is less settled. A Wisconsin Public Radio feature in 2025 captioned her possibly the third-largest loon statue in the world, and one of the authors of a Wisconsin roadside guidebook said “I think there are two others that beat it.” The town also holds a Loon Day each year, UpNorthNews says, with arts and crafts, a flea market, live music and a loon-calling contest. She is beside the chamber of commerce on US Highway 51, and in 2025 one of the guidebook’s authors described her to Wisconsin Public Radio as “the big loon as you enter Mercer.”