The Environment

By Paul A. Johnsgard

Over the past 50 years I have often been asked why, of all the places I have lived and visited, I chose Nebraska as the place I have decided to spend the rest of my life. I quite willingly admit that Nebraska lacks the mountain grandeur of Colorado, the wonderful rocky coastline of Oregon and the stunning glaciers of Alaska. Yet I quickly point out that we Nebraskans can claim the continent’s largest remaining native prairie flora and its associated prairie wildlife, perched on the largest region of picturesque sand dunes in the western hemisphere. This in turn rests atop one of the greatest reservoirs of fresh water in the world, whose artesian springs give birth to such beautiful Sandhills streams as the Calamus, Loup, Dismal and Elkhorn. Then, as a trump card, I say, “Oh yes, and for six weeks in spring we also have what is one of the largest and most spectacular concentrations of birds in the world.”

By Jack Phillips

If plants had religion, oaks would be shamans. Human history is thickly forested with sacred trees, and no other native Great Plains presence symbolizes the aspiration to traverse the realms of heaven, earth and underworld. In this, bur oaks have no equal, being unmatched in longevity and reach. And they have another eco-mystical ability. They can enter and occupy a wide range of distant and forbidding habitats. Unlike other oaks, bur oaks are unperturbed by prairie fire, alkaline soils, drought, big bovines and competition by deep-rooted grasses.

By Paul C. Sutton

Following the publication of Aldo Leopold’s “A Sand County Almanac” in 1949, Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring” in 1962 and Paul and Anne Ehrlich’s “The Population Bomb” in 1968, the early 1970s were a time of rapidly expanding consciousness of issues associated with environmental degradation and human responsibility for those impacts on the environment. In 1969 the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland, Ohio, actually caught on fire, and there was a significant oil spill in the Santa Barbara channel. These events likely contributed to precipitating the first Earth Day celebration in 1970. Approximately one year after the first Earth Day celebration, Paul Ehrlich and John Holdren published an important conceptual paper titled “Impact of Population Growth.” This paper postulated an oft-cited equation: I = P × A × T (where “I” is Impact, “P” is Population, “A” is Affluence and “T” is Technology).

An essay written during the Prairie Writers Workshop, May 2010, at the Willa Cather Memorial Prairie near Red Cloud, Neb.

By William Beachly

Where are the hard edges when we consider this prairie before us? Perhaps a photograph would create the illusion of them: freezing a crystalline moment. But in motion, in real time, there are no real edges. Like Heisenberg’s particles—position and place and motion are not a unity. The edges of the prairie itself as a named formation are vague too. Its very name denoting “a little meadow” shows the lack of a suitable term. Those French trappers had known no such place to relate it to. Prairie is to place as impressionism is to art: it’s a genre of place.

Welcome to the Great Central Nebraska Flyway! While you are in the area for the Sandhill crane migration, we hope you’ll select from the attractions and businesses listed here, a sampling of the many opportunities available to enrich your experience while in central Nebraska. For more detailed information about items on this list, go to redcarpetservice.nebraska.edu. You’ll find a link to a document that can be downloaded and/or printed.

Click for a list of events related to this year's Central Nebraska Migration Season.

Click here for all the information you need for birding this year.

By Daniel Glomski

So you’ve always wanted to see the great sandhill crane migration but have never taken the time to get in the car and make the short trip to the central Platte valley?

You get yet another opportunity. As they’ve done for millenia, the sandhills will arrive in early spring by the hundreds of thousands—one of the greatest migration spectacles on the planet. Little wonder that many people travel hundreds, even thousands of miles to witness it. If you’re a Nebraskan, the show literally comes to you.

OK, you’ve decided to see for yourself what the hoopla is all about. How should you prepare for your initial crane-viewing venture?

By Daniel Glomski, Jill Liske-Clark, and Judy Weston

Are you a birder?

Odds are good that you qualify. Over 48 million Americans, about 21 percent of the population, watch birds in one form or another, spending about $36 billion annually on the hobby. The vast majority of birders stick to the backyard, setting up a feeding station and watching to see what shows up. If you fall into this category, you might not consider yourself a birder. After all, don’t “real” birders jump into the car or book a flight at the drop of a hat to chase a rare stray in some distant locale?

By Paul A. Johnsgard

Few people are entirely neutral as to their attitudes about owls. As mysterious nocturnal visitors, their voices send fear into the hearts many but offer a haunting and relaxing mantra to others. Probably many people spend their entire lives without ever seeing a wild owl, their camouflage-like plumages blend into their background so well that a family of owls can exist in a hollow tree of one’s backyard without even being noticed.

Recently, twelve Nebraska citizens met and discussed the needs and possible solutions to the lack of an adequate, stable source of funding to address the state’s water development funding needs. This group discussed four critical questions that must be answered:

1st- What are annual funding needs for water development in Nebraska?

2nd- What qualifies as water development?

3rd- Who should decide how funds for water development are spent?

4th- What are possible funding sources?

By Mark M. Peyton

One of the best, if not the best, places to observe American bald eagles in Nebraska is below Kingsley Dam and Lake McConaughy, which are located on the North Platte River near the community of Ogallala, Neb.

In 1988 Central Nebraska Public Power and Irrigation District opened its Johnson #2 Power Plant located south of Lexington to the public to view the collection of up to 60 bald eagles fishing and loafing in the tailrace of that plant. Rodger Knaggs, Kingsley Dam superintendent said, “Come to McConaughy, we have more eagles than that!” He was right (as he usually is).

By W. Cecil Steward

Energy is the great equalizer—permeating every facet of our lives in Nebraska and on the planet. Energy heats our homes, powers our buildings, computers and vehicles. Energy grows our food and is the force behind mining and manufacturing raw materials into products for human consumption. Energy is everywhere.

By Stephen J. Dinsmore

Situated at the base of the Nebraska Panhandle, the Lake McConaughy area is one of the premier birding areas in Nebraska and the entire Great Plains region. Much of this is a result of the diversity of habitats in this small area—a large lake with sandy beaches, lush marshes, riparian habitat along major river corridors, extensive thickets of cedars, the Sandhills grasslands and urban areas. Ornithologists and birders visiting this area have documented an incredible 363 species of birds, largely a result of the habitat diversity. In this article I’ll begin with some general advice on birding locales and then detail when and where some of the region’s birdlife can be viewed.

By Robert Kelley Schneiders

An ancient mammalian road network once crisscrossed the northern reaches of what is now the United States. Its trails had existed since the last ice age. For thousands of years, large mammals—such as the wooly mammoth, saber-toothed tiger, sloth, bison antiques and later bison bison, cut pathways across the land. Over the years the mammal trails became deeper and wider from the incessant pounding of hooves. Even before humans arrived on the continent, bison, deer and elk located the routes of least resistance through the landscape. After the peopling of North America, humans adopted those same roads for their own use.

By Gene Hunt

Coming soon will be one of the great natural wonders in the world. Please come to enjoy what the folks along the Platte take for granted: thousands of Sandhill cranes making those prehistoric sounds along with ducks and geese that look like clouds filling the morning and evening skies.

By Robert Kelley Schneiders

During the construction of the Missouri River navigation channel, the Army Corps of Engineers erected thousands of pile dikes and revetments to narrow, deepen and straighten the wide, shallow, meandering stream. Once the engineering works went into the river, the Missouri deposited its heavy silt load on the downstream side of the structures. Over time, new, elevated lands appeared in the river’s floodplain. Side channels, marshlands and scour holes—everything that constituted the floodplain—filled with alluvium. Accumulated sediments sharply reduced the floodplain’s ability to store floodwater. Valley farmers benefitted from the newly accreted land. They expanded their operations into the floodplain, planting row crops where native vegetation once grew. The floodplain’s loss meant the farmer’s monetary gain.

By Jane Griffin

Who would have guessed that it would be a proposed pipeline that would put in evidence the concern for and interest in the aquifer and the life-sustaining resource it contains: groundwater. But, boy, it sure has. It almost seems as if the fate of the pipeline equates the fate of the aquifer. Instead, the one indisputable fact relevant to this discussion is this: no matter what the outcome is of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, there will continue to be issues that strain or put our water supply at risk as our society grows and evolves.

By W. Cecil Steward

Water is essential to the sustainability of all life on the planet. Without access to a sufficient supply of clean water, human civilization and even human life itself is impossible. Human activity in Nebraska relies on a combination of surface- and groundwater sources. Surface water is obtained from nine major watersheds in Nebraska, while the High Plains (Ogallala) Aquifer serves as the source for an estimated 2.145 billion acre-feet of water, the second largest source of potable water on Earth.

By Eric Schacht

In today’s economic climate, many beef cattle ranches find it tough to survive. In order to remain successful, grassland management models have been adapting.

In Nebraska, a multiple-enterprise ranch, where nature-based activities like birding, hunting and hospitality are integrated into the traditional beef cattle ranch, is rare, though it has started to pop up here and there around the state. However, internationally, in South America and Africa, landowners have for quite some time now have developed hospitality and tourism businesses that complement their cattle operations.