Conservation

The public is invited to get up-close and personal with bird populations at two parks in the Nebraska Panhandle this fall. During the coming month, banding stations will be operating at Wildcat Hills State Recreation Area near Gering and Chadron State Park near Chadron. The public is invited to join the bird-banders during two special sessions, Saturday, Aug. 30, at Chadron and Saturday, Sept. 13, at Wildcat Hills. Attendees of the informational sessions will watch as biologists retrieve birds from …

The Nebraska Fish & Game Association has installed bins for recycling fishing line all around the state, NEFGA Line Bins Map.  I am a huge fan of the program not only because it gets discarded fishing line off the shores of our waters, but because I love it when anglers take ownership in the care and condition of THEIR resources!  If you are interested in contributing to, or participating in that program, make sure to check it out, NEFGA Line …

Fish have been displayed at the Nebraska State Fair almost every year since 1885.  There was a year, 1898, when there was no funding for displaying fish at the state fair, and in 1976 no fish were displayed because a new aquarium complex was under construction.  That complex housed fish every year at the state fair in Lincoln until the fair moved to Grand Island.  We have not had fish at the state fair since it moved to Grand Island …

An extraordinary aspect to wildlife management these days is the extent to which technology is being used to learn more about animals. It seems telemetry, the process of using tracking devices attached to the animals to collect data, is increasingly being used to monitor a variety of species. In my time with the Game and Parks Commission, I’ve photographed researchers putting collars on animals as big as elk and as small as burrowing owls. I even read an article not …

Every year about this time the Discovery Channel has their Shark Week.  If you are a pointy-headed fisheries biologist like me, you think that is pretty cool, especially when great white sharks are munching on seals (Ah, poor seal.)  Unfortunately, Nebraska has some really cool toothy predators, but alas no sharks.  To piggyback on the whole shark week thing some have thought it would be fun if we had “Carp Week” at the same time.  OK.  If we are going …

Join me tomorrow morning for a very special edition of The Great Outdoor Radio Show I host when Denise Lewis and friends from Fontenelle Forest’s Raptor Recovery team come with a few live birds to the Waterford Assisted Living facility at Miracle Hills in Omaha. See LIVE raptors of Nebraska! We’ll be highlighting the tremendous conservation work that Fontenelle Forest’s Raptor Recovery does with injured, sick or orphaned raptors as well as the vital role that nongame wildlife such as raptors have in any ecosystem! The …

“We need to find a tree that’s serious about this,” Jack Phillips said jokingly while collecting acorns last fall along a wooded trail outlining Pioneers Park in Lincoln. The bur oaks he walked beneath are tall and magnificent – and becoming increasingly rare. “The old bur oak is on the edge all the time,” Phillips said. “We should treat the species as if it were endangered, looking at the age of populations now.” The collected acorns, minus the ones nibbled …

I am betting that most of you who have been in the Nebraska outdoors this summer have seen at least one dragonfly.  Usually they are found near water, but not necessarily so, sometimes adult dragonflies can venture a long way from water.  However, dragonflies are definitely aquatic insects.  In fact dragonflies spend most of their lives in the water!  Adult dragonflies mate and then the females deposits eggs on the surface of the water.  Those eggs hatch into larval dragonflies …

Who doesn’t enjoy seeing native wildflowers in good habitat on a farm, huh? I know I do! I am so wild about wildflowers (forbs) that I have planted a number of applicable varieties on our 148 year-old southeastern Nebraska farm in our Conservation Reserve Program acres. I am proud of the pollinator habitat we have established. Here it is at work! According to the USDA’s Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS), pollinators play a crucial role in the reproduction of many plants, including many of …

I am going to share a photo of a big fish that was caught in Nebraska recently.  Yes, I realize that some of my blog readers will know all about this catch already, it has been making the rounds on the internet and that is where I got the photos and information.  But,  I want to blog about it because there are a lots of other folks who have not heard about it.  If there is one thing I have …