Volume 87, Issue 2, 2009
March 2009
- Identifier:
- nela.2009_087_02
- Title:
- Volume 87, Issue 2, 2009
- Issue Name:
- March 2009
- Date Issued:
- 2009-03-01
- year:
- 2009
- month:
- March
- Season:
- Winter
- PDF filename:
- NL_87.02_2009_Mar_Spreads_Entire.pdf
- Publisher:
- Nebraska Game and Parks Commission
- Format:
- Periodical
- volume:
- 087
- issue:
- 02
- number:
- 087.02
- Decade:
- 2000s
- Type:
- Rights Holder:
- Copyright Nebraskaland Magazine/Nebraska Game and Parks Commission, all rights reserved.
- Extracted Text:
-
After finding a photographer at the pasture gate instead of the feed wagon, a gray horse on an equally
gray day near Broadwater on the North Platte River indicates that it’s ready for spring to arrive.
Photo by Bob Grier.
Published by the
$4.95
NebraskalandMagazine.com
OutdoorNebraska.org
Volume 87, Number 2, March 2009
12 Martin’s Reach
The sign next to the road says “Dead End.” But what you’ll
find at the end of the road – Martin’s Reach Wildlife
Management Area – is far from dead.
TEXT AND PHOTOS BY ERIC FOWLER
20 This Wild City
A walk through the world of wolverines, wolves and wild
men without leaving Lincoln’s city limits. BY LISA KNOPP
22 This Dam House
Sleeping atop a river is not for everyone, but for this family
from Barneston, there’s no place they’d rather call home.
TEXT AND PHOTOS BY ERIC FOWLER
28 The Light Goose Conservation Action
Ten years after then-President Bill Clinton signed legislation
allowing unprecented population control measures for light
geese, the problem still exists. BY JEFF KURRUS
34 Arrival of the Ringneck
When pheasants were first introduced in Nebraska will
probably never be determined, but sportsmen and bird
fanciers were rearing and releasing them into the wild at
least as early as the 1890s. BY JON FARRAR
34
●
42 Cranes on the North Platte
Most wildlife enthusiasts know of the annual spring
rendezvous of lesser sandhill cranes that gather each March
on a relatively short section of the central Platte Valley. Few
know, however, of the smaller numbers of cranes that gather
along the North Platte River near Lewellen.
TEXT AND PHOTOS BY BOB GRIER
Comment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Mixed Bag . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
In the Field . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .46
Classifieds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
Parks and Places . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .49
Portraits from the Past . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
22
●
20
●
Cover: In a demonstration of speed, grace and maneuverability, northern pintail drakes follow
a hen on a courtship flight above the Platte River at Martin’s Reach Wildlife Management Area
on a March morning. Photo by Eric Fowler.
Opposite: In early-March, a great horned owl peeks from a cottonwood tree nest site in
Lancaster County. Photo by Bill Hager.
NEBRASKAland (VOL. 87 / NO. 2, ISSN 0028-1964) is published monthly, except for the
combined Jan./Feb. and Aug./Sept. issues, by the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission,
2200 N. 33rd St., Lincoln, NE. Periodicals postage paid at Lincoln, Nebraska, and additional
mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to NEBRASKAland, P.O. Box 30370,
Lincoln, NE 68503-0370.
42
●
MARCH 2009 • NEBRASKALAND 3
Published by the
Nebraska Game and
Parks Commission
Director: Rex Amack
Assistant Directors:
Roger Kuhn, Kirk Nelson, Sam Sidner
Information & Education Administrator:
Doug Bauch
Commissioners
Chairman:
James Ziebarth, Wilcox
Vice Chairman:
Jerrod Burke, Curtis
2nd Vice Chairman:
Mick Jensen, Blair
Dr. Mark Pinkerton, Wilber
Ron Stave, Waterloo
Dr. Kent Forney, Lincoln
Lynn Berggren, Broken Bow
Rex Fisher, Omaha
Mark Spurgin, Paxton
Magazine Staff
Editor: Doug Carroll
Associate Editor: Jeff Kurrus
Art Director: Tim Reigert
Senior Editor: Jon Farrar
Regional Editors:
Eric Fowler, Bob Grier, Rocky Hoffmann
Photo Librarian: Sarah Johnson
Marketing/Advertising:
Jane Gustafson
For advertising information e-mail
ngpc.advertising@nebraska.gov
or call (402) 471-5481
Circulation:
Donna Robinson
For address changes and questions about
your subscription, e-mail
donna.robinson@nebraska.gov
or call (800) 632-5263
NEBRASKAland Magazine
Copyright 2009, all rights reserved.
NEBRASKAland is available on audio cassette from the
Nebraska Library Commission Talking Book and Braille
Service, Suite 120, 1200 N St., Lincoln, NE 68508. (800)
742-7691. NEBRASKAland Magazine and the Nebraska
Game and Parks Commission reserve the right to reject
any advertising not in keeping with the agency mission.
Rates: $18 for one year; $33 for two years; $44 for
three years. Nebraska residents must add
appropriate sales tax.
To subscribe call 1-800-NEBLAND (632-5263),
or go online to: NebraskalandMagazine.com.
4 NEBRASKALAND • MARCH 2009
John Geistlinger poses with the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission’s Conestoga
wagon in front of his house around 1966 in Lincoln.
NEBRASKAland in Afghanistan
I'm currently serving with a small
group of nine Nebraska National
Guard personnel supporting Operation
Enduring Freedom in Bagram,
Afghanistan. Our Unit; Detachment 43,
OSA, is based out of Lincoln and is
conducting aircraft transportation
support of personnel and cargo. Since
our arrival here, we've enjoyed receiving
copies of the NEBRASKAland Magazine
which we all peruse to remind us of
where we come from and what we miss
about home.
Recently, in the January/February
issue, I noticed the article covering
the NEBRASKAland Calendar and its
inception and history. I observed the
picture of “Neb” and “Raska” – the
two oxen that were teamed to the
Conestoga wagon. I was taken back to
memories when I was five to seven
years of age and my father, Dale (Bud)
Geistlinger, would sometimes arrive
home with a trailer loaded with a
massive blue-and-white wagon pulled
by a brown-and-white International
Travelall truck. He, Bill Brazil and
perhaps others would travel around
Nebraska attending local city parades
and promoting the Commission’s charter.
What I remember the most was that I
thought I was king for a day when the
wagon was parked in front of our house
prior to his departures.
A little bit of commonality is that
my father helped construct animated
displays and sometimes incorporated
taxidermy work that the magazine’s
current art director's father, John
Reigert Jr., provided. Now a former
Nebraska Army Guard aviator named
William Hager, is providing excellent
photography of our great state and its
natural resources to the magazine [see
page 2 of this issue], for which we
search with interest in each publication.
It's a small world and we enjoy the
great work of all the staff involved with
the magazine. Their efforts do affect
Nebraskans far away and provide
positive memories and images of
"Nebraska - The Good Life," which
makes our home state seem that much
closer to us because of their work.
Thank you!
John A. Geistlinger
CW4, AV, NEARNG
Aviation Safety Officer
Saving Fish and Money
A friend of mine, Charlie Long, a
former resident of your state, passes
along every NEBRASKAland Magazine
when he finishes with them. I very much
enjoy the writing. I have never been in
Nebraska but I worked in fishery
research laboratory at the USFWS Fish
Genetics Laboratory at Ranch "A"
outside Beulah, Wyoming between
1974-1980.
Your article, "Saving Fish for
Fisherman" in the November 2008
NEBRASKAland hit a cord. I worked
for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
between September 1955 and February
1984, and a few of those years I was on
field duty. You mentioned seining crews
pooling their money for lunch and to
“buy a loaf of bread, lunch meat and
pop."
When we worked in the field
between 1957-1960, our lunches
consisted of the same. Per diem was
$8 to $10 per day. During one period
we ate our meals with the hired man
and his family for "3 squares" a day.
Another time we brought our sleeping
bags and slept in a farmer’s hay shed.
Reg Morgan
Coulee Dam, Washington
Portraits from the Past
I really like reading your magazine,
especially the portraits of the past
section. I love seeing the old photos
that you guys post. It gives a fun glimpse
of what Nebraska’s landscape, hunting
and fishing used to be like. I hope to
see more good pictures in the upcoming
issues. Keep up the good work.
Ryan Ehrman
Omaha, Nebraska
Send your comments to:
Doug Carroll, Editor
NEBRASKAland Magazine
P.O. Box 30370
Lincoln, NE 68503
or e-mail doug.carroll@nebraska.gov
Please include your postal address and
telephone number.
Letters may be condensed and edited
for clarity. Photographs are
welcome and will be returned.
From left: Kimberly Moore, Jeff Caniglia,
Burdette Chappell, Jeremy Cutsor,
Marty Adkins, John Geistlinger (myself),
Matthew Greathouse, Penny Winterburn
and Eugene Coppersmith.
Under federal and/or state law, discrimination is prohibited on the basis
of race, color, religion, age, gender, marital status, national origin,
disability or political affiliation. If you think you have been discriminated
against in any program, activity or facility by the Nebraska Game and
Parks Commission or want more information, contact the Commission in
Lincoln, NE, at (402) 471-0641 or the Equal Opportunity Commission,
Lincoln, NE, (402) 471-2024, TTY/TDD (402) 471-4693).
Headquarters
2200 N. 33rd Street
Lincoln, NE 68503
Phone (402) 471-0641
District Office I
East Hwy. 2, Box 725
Alliance, NE 69301
Phone (308) 763-2940
District Office II
524 Panzer St., Box 508
Bassett, NE 68714
Phone (402) 684-2921
District Office III
2201 N. 13th St.
Norfolk, NE 68701
Phone (402) 370-3374
District Office IV
301 E. State Farm Rd.
North Platte, NE 69101
Phone (308) 535-8025
District Office VI
1617 First Ave.
Kearney, NE 68847
Phone (308) 865-5310
Omaha Office
1212 Bob Gibson Blvd.
Omaha, NE 68108
Phone (402) 595-2144
Ak-Sar-Ben Aquarium
21502 W. Highway 31
Gretna, NE 68028
Phone (402) 332-3901
World Wide Web site: www.OutdoorNebraska.org
Administration
Ted Blume (Adm.)
Craig Stover (Asst.)
Wes Loos (Asst.)
Rod Loos (Asst.)
Murray Johnson
Lincoln
471-5531
Lincoln
471-5532
Lincoln
471-5591
Ogallala (308) 284-8056
Lincoln
471-5003
Panhandle
Officer
City
Phone (308)
Jim Zimmerman (Sup.) Gering
436-7561
Walt Meyer
Chadron
432-4398
Scott Brandt
Gering
436-3418
Heath Packett
Gordon
282-2553
Dennis Thompson
Lemoyne
355-2024
Dan Zuehlke
Ogallala
284-4815
Doug Pollard
Oshkosh
772-9950
Frank Miller
Valentine (402) 376-1183
Dan Kling
Whitney
432-8367
Southwest
Officer
City
Phone (308)
Roger Thompson (Sup.) N. Platte
532-9175
Ray Dierking
Brkn. Bow
872-3078
George Sund
Cambridge
697-4629
Michael Thome
Cozad
784-4362
Matt Andrews
Elwood
785-3025
Dirk Greene
Imperial
882-5328
Virgil Gosch
McCook
345-2185
Dudley Sorensen
N. Platte
532-0747
Rich Routh
Rep. City
799-2085
South-central
Officer
Jerry Pecha (Sup.)
Jeff Jones
Terry Brentzel
City
Phone (308)
Kearney
865-5327
Clay Center(402)762-3124
Doniphan (402)845-2021
Randy Pomplun
Darin Gress
Dale Johnson
Mark Reeves
Robert Finke
Richard Seward
Fullerton
536-2987
Hebron (402) 768-2287
Kearney
237-1079
Loup City
745-0662
Milford (402) 761-3537
Ord
728-3115
Northeast
Officer
Tom Zimmer (Sup.)
Dale Davis
Ross Oestmann
Steve Oberg
Daniel Roberts
Jon Reeves
Marion Shafer
Pat George
Eric Wiebe
Tim Williams
Cory Krause
City
Phone (402)
Norfolk
371-6625
Bassett
273-1700
Bloomfield
373-4412
Columbus
564-5937
Fremont
721-7852
Kennard
427-7378
Norfolk
371-2031
O’Neill
336-1588
Ponca
755-2566
Neligh
887-1335
West Point
372-6979
Southeast
Officer
Duane Arp (Sup.)
Sean McKeehan
William Krause
Mike Luben
Douglas Kramer
Dina Barta
Stacey Lewton
Levi Krause
Russell Mort
Dan Evasco
Jeff Clauson
City
Gretna
Ashland
Auburn
Colon
Lincoln
Lincoln
Lincoln
Louisville
Nebr. City
Papillion
Waterloo
Phone (402)
332-2965
944-4174
274-3789
443-4278
466-9001
483-2358
476-0436
234-2212
873-5684
592-6733
359-5301
Nebraska Wildlife Crimestoppers 1-800-742-7627
MARCH 2009 • NEBRASKALAND 5
Prairie Audubon Center at (402) 7972301. Register on or before February
28 to take advantage of discount prices.
Two Rivers Trout Lake
Opens March 14
Two Rivers State
Recreation Area’s
popular trout-fishing
lake will open
March 14 this year
instead of the
traditional April 1 opening day in order
to give anglers more opportunity to
catch these tasty coldwater fish before
the lake’s water temperatures get too
warm for them to survive. More than
11,000 10- to 11-inch rainbow trout
will be available on the season opener.
The trout lake is open from 7 a.m. to
sunset each day. To fish there, anglers
must purchase a trout tag from the Two
Rivers office. Each tag sells for $4 and
allows the taking of four trout. An
angler may purchase a maximum of
three tags each day and is allowed
12 trout in possession. Family tags are
also available that allow an adult angler
to be accompanied by two children
under the age of 16, but the group bag
limit is still limited to four trout per tag.
Two Rivers trout anglers age 16 and
older must possess a current Nebraska
fishing license and all vehicles entering
the area are required to have a current
Nebraska park entry permit.
Duck and Dumplings
Jeff Kurrus
In November of 2008, the
NEBRASKAland article “Wrapped in
Bacon” revealed a small list of simple
recipes for the layman chef. However,
there wasn’t enough room to share all
of my favorite recipes, and by this
point in the year there are probably still
a few pieces of duck, goose or fall
turkey left to cook.
Warm the oven to 250 degrees and in
it place the meat in a pan covered with
aluminum foil. Allow the meat to cook
for seven hours or until it easily falls
off of the bone. Boil two cups of water
in a medium pan and add a can of
separated biscuits to the water,
constantly stirring until thick. Add one
teaspoon of butter, then pour in the
meat and drippings from the goose pan,
salt and pepper to taste, and stir
constantly until the dumplings become
thick. Serve.
Rivers and Wildlife Celebration
6 NEBRASKALAND • MARCH 2009
Turpin Time
PHOTO BY KATIE JOSEPH
The 39th annual Rivers and Wildlife
Celebration will be held this year from
March 20-22 at the Holiday Inn in
Kearney.
Presented by Audubon’s Rowe
Sanctuary, Audubon
Nebraska and the
Nebraska Partnership
for All-Bird
Conservation, the
celebration includes
presentations by world
Joel Sartore
renown birders and
nature photographers, including
lifelong Nebraskan Joel Sartore, a
photographer for National Geographic,
as well as field-trips to a variety of
local birding destinations, including
Platte River blinds, to experience the
sandhill crane migration.
For more information about the
conference, contact the Spring Creek
Dick Turpin
I’m just starting
on my state income
tax return and the
only good thing
about it is that I can
help the outdoors at
the same time by
giving back part of
my refund to the
Nebraska Wildlife Conservation Fund.
On the state form, there is a peregrine
falcon logo – that’s where you can help
fund projects that benefit our wildlife,
fish and plant resources. Hunters and
anglers contribute dollars for wildlife
by buying permits, but by law that
money can ONLY be spent for game
species. Well, 95% of our wildlife is
nongame, such as flying squirrels, river
otters and bald eagles, so this tax
checkoff is the main source of funding
for those species. Only 2% of us
taxpayers are pitching in. You can give
as little as one buck – that’s like
sacrificing a few cans of pop a year!
I think I’ll put in ten.
Cornhusker
Trapshoot Expanding
8 NEBRASKALAND • MARCH 2009
Shed Hunting
Doug Carroll
If you’re looking for a
late-winter activity to get
outside and perhaps get
you some much needed
exercise, why not try shed
hunting?
Every winter, buck deer
across Nebraska begin
shedding their antlers around
the first part of January to start
getting ready for the new pair that
will begin growing that upcoming
spring. These “sheds” then lay around
until rodents chew them up for the
nutrients they contain, Mother Nature
works her magic and causes them to
eventually fall apart, or someone comes
along and picks them up.
Antlers make great decorations, can
be used in a variety of craft projects
and make great incentives to practice
with your weapon of choice for next
year’s deer season. Shed hunting is also
a great way to scout for deer.
While sheds can be found anytime
after the bucks have started to drop
their antlers, March is a great time to
look because the ground is often free of
snow and new vegetation has not yet
begun to grow, which makes finding
the antlers much easier. Don’t get
discouraged if you don’t find one
right away – it’s not as bad as
finding a needle in a
haystack, but it can feel
that way sometimes. Here
are some tips that might
help:
Begin your search in
areas you know bucks
and other deer have been
seen, especially deer
wintering yards, feeding
areas and the trails
between feeding areas and
bedding areas. The edge of
crop fields and just inside tree
lines are also good places to look.
When looking for antlers, don’t look
for the entire antler – part of it might
be buried in grass, dirt or a snow. Most
shed antlers are light-colored, so look
for light-colored objects, the curve of a
beam – anything that looks out of
place. Also, if you find one antler, the
matching one is often nearby, so look
around carefully. Mark areas where you
find sheds on a map – chances are
you’ll find sheds in the same relative
area on a yearly basis.
One you find one shed you’ll want to
keep finding more, so get outside and
have some fun.
Spring Fever
Daryl Bauer
At the end of a long, cold winter
everyone has spring fever in one form
or another. Nebraska anglers, even those
who love to ice-fish, naturally are eager
to cast a line in liquid waters.
Unfortunately, fishing can
be very tough in the cold
water of early spring.
At that time of year my
thoughts and strategies
turn toward coldand cool-water
species that are
most likely to be
active. Nebraska is blessed
with a wide
variety of
species of
fish, so
there are a number
of different early spring
opportunities available.
Early spring is one of the best times
to fish for wild brown, rainbow or
MARCH 2009 • NEBRASKALAND 9
FISH ART BY DUANE RAVER, UNITED STATES
FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE
Although the weather may not
seem like it, now may be the time
to start practicing for this year’s
Cornhusker Trapshoot.
Celebrating its 40th anniversary
this year, the Cornhusker Trapshoot
will be held April 30- May 2.
Traditionally open only to
7th through 12th grade students who
are academically eligible, go to school
full time and who have successfully
completed a certified hunter safety
course, this year’s shoot has been
expanded to include sixth-grade students
who are at least 12 years old and meet
the aforementioned requirements.
Last year 1,681 shooters competed in
the Cornhusker, making it the largest
meet of its kind in the nation. The
junior high meet (open to 6th through
8th grade students) begins at 9 a.m. on
April 30 and consists of 100 16-yard
targets. The senior high events
(9th through 12th grade students) will
be conducted May 1-2 and consist of
100 16-yard targets on the first day,
followed by 100 handicap targets on
the second, with the handicap yardage
being determined by dividing the
16-yard score by four and rounding up
any fractions. The minimum handicap
yardage will be the 18-yard line.
More than 75 awards and prizes plus
172 medals will be presented at this
year’s meet. The deadline for entering
is April 22, and there is a $40 entry fee
per high school shooter and $20 entry
fee for junior high contestants.
Anyone interested in participating
should contact their local gun or 4-H
club to find out if they are involved in
the high school trap program. If there is
no program in their area, they may
participate as an individual or try to
recruit enough nearby students to form
a 5-person team, but a parent or other
adult must volunteer to be the team’s
coach. Many teams across the state
participate in weekend shoots for the
month or two leading up to the
Cornhusker, and these are good
opportunities to practice and pick up
valuable shooting tips and experience.
For more information, write Rocky
Hoffmann, Shoot Director, Nebraska
Game and Parks Commission, 301 E.
State Farm Rd., North Platte, NE
69101-0430, or call (308) 535-8025
from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through
Friday. You can also e-mail him at
rocky.hoffmann@nebraska.gov.
The Ticket
My grandfather, Otto Barta (left) and
my father, Willard Barta (right), used
to do a lot of handfishing on the
Niobrara River and some of the
creeks that fed into it, even though
handfishing has always been an illegal
activity in Nebraska. Also in the picture
is my mother, Doris Barta. Mom and
Dad met in the Phillipines during
WWII. Dad was in the Army and Mom
was an Army nurse. They are pictured
in their Army fatigues. I am pretty sure
Mom just held the catfish and didn't
actually handfish. She was a city girl
from New Bedford, Massachusetts.
One day while working in the office I got curious and decided to see
if anyone from my family had ever been cited for any Game and
Parks violations. I found the citation to my grandfather. Both my
grandfather and father had
passed away by the time I
found the ticket. I called my
mother and she was sure
Grandpa had kept this one
a secret. Grandma would
have been furious. Fifteen
dollars in 1940 was a huge
fine (a lot of egg money!).
Dad and Grandpa did so
much handfishing, their
hands were raw a lot of the summer. It was fitting that Grandpa got
a ticket. Unfortunately ... he didn't learn ... the picture is from the
mid-1940s.
– Dina Barta
Conservation Officer, Lincoln
brook trout on one of Nebraska’s
cold-water streams. Most of the
streams that support trout year-round
are found in the northern and western
parts of the state.
The Trout Fishing
in Nebraska’s
Streams booklet
outlines the
locations of those
fisheries and can
be obtained at
Nebraska Game
and Parks
Commission
10 NEBRASKALAND • MARCH 2009
offices or by requesting it online at
OutdoorNebraska.org.
Northern pike are the first fish to
spawn in Nebraska every spring and
can be found in relatively shallow water
as soon as the ice is gone. Nebraska’s
sandhills lakes are the state’s best pike
habitats and offer some great early spring
pike fishing. While there are fewer pike
in a number of Nebraska reservoirs,
some of those fish can be trophy size
and early spring is the best time to find
them in the back ends of bays and coves.
Walleye and sauger are other species
that spawn soon after ice out. Although
spawning fish don’t have feeding on
their minds and can be difficult to catch,
early spring can offer some productive
pre-spawn fishing for these species.
One of the most popular spots for
early season sauger and walleye is
the Missouri River in northeastern
Nebraska. Anglers should also be aware
of a very good sauger fishery, in addition
to some walleyes, in the Tri-County
canal system and associated reservoirs,
including Johnson Reservoir.
Yellow perch are another cool-water
fish that can be found in some Nebraska
waters. Nebraska’s sandhills lakes are
also the best perch habitats in Nebraska.
Perch will move shallow in search of
aquatic vegetation or flooded terrestrial
vegetation on which to deposit their
ribbons of eggs. Ice anglers fishing on
“late ice” will catch yellow perch near
the areas in which they will spawn a few
weeks later. Necked-down areas at the
mouths of bays can be particularly good.
Early spring gives anglers a chance to
finally get on the water again. Certainly
better fishing and a greater diversity of
opportunities will be available later in the
spring when waters have had a chance
to warm several degrees, but anglers
can avoid the early spring frustrations
by targeting species that are most
likely to be active as
soon as the ice
melts.
Spring Rise
Planned for Missouri River
Two man-made spring rises designed
to mimic the historic flow regime of
the Missouri River and benefit the
endangered pallid sturgeon should both
occur for the first time this year.
Spring rises were mandated by the
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in a
Biological Opinion issued in 2003 to
the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and
incorporated into the Corps’ operating
plan for the river.
Created through the release of
additional water from Gavins Point
Dam, the first rise is to be conducted in
March, a time when the Missouri
historically rose as snow melted and
rain fell on the plains in the lower
elevations of the river’s watershed.
Biologists believe this rise served as a
cue for pallid sturgeon to move into
staging areas and prepare to spawn, and
also washed silt from spawning beds.
A second rise is planned for May, a
time period when melted snow from the
Rocky Mountains historically caused
the river to rise again. This rise, along
with increasing water temperatures, cued
pallid sturgeon that it was time to spawn.
Much of the runoff in the Missouri
River basin is now stored in six large
reservoirs on the upper Missouri,
including Lewis and Clark Lake in
Nebraska. Years of drought and other
factors reduced storage levels in the
reservoirs below the minimum levels
required to conduct one or more of the
man-made spring rises each year since
the first was conducted in May 2006.
Thanks to runoff in 2008 that was
above normal for the first time since
1999, as well as conservation measures
that reduced releases for navigation, the
Corps anticipates reservoir levels will
be high enough to carry out both rises
this year. The March rise will add 5,000
cubic feet of water per second to
releases from Gavins Point Dam while
the May rise will add about 10,000.
Although releases from Gavins Point
comprise only a small part of total flows
in the lower Missouri due to inflows from
tributaries, the spring rise could be
eliminated to prevent flooding if river
levels are high due to heavy rains.
Fish and wildlife species on
Nebraska’s reach of the Missouri River,
where Gavins releases make up a higher
proportion of the total river flows,
benefit most from the spring rise.
While the March and May man-made
spring rises were not conducted in 2007,
high flows from rivers in South Dakota
provided a natural rise. Intensive tracking
of pallid sturgeon by Nebraska Game
and Parks Commission and U.S.
Geologic Service researchers confirmed
two female pallids spawned in May –
one in the unchannelized reach above
Ponca State Park and the other in the
channelized reach near Macy. While it
was the first time spawning had been
confirmed in either reach of the river,
researchers cannot say whether enough
young hatched and survived to add to
the population.
Access Program
A new access program recently
announced by the Nebraska Game and
Parks Commission should provide
much needed extra cash to landowners
while also providing hunters and anglers
with more opportunities to enjoy their
sport.
Under the Commission’s new Open
Fields and Waters Program, landowners
may be paid as much as $12 per acre
for enrolling high quality woodlands or
wetlands and allowing hunter access to
their land during all hunting seasons.
The payment to landowners who enroll
lakes or ponds in the program for fishing
access will be $250 for bodies of water
up to one acre and an additional $40 per
acre for larger waters. Access to streams
and rivers bordered by private land will
be paid at the rate $750 per mile for
coldwater trout streams and rivers, and
$500 per mile for warm water. Other
rates will be paid depending on the
quality and type of habitat enrolled in
the program and the types of hunting
permitted on the land.
For the lands portion, the new program
is focused on sites that must have a
core of mature woodland or quality
wetland hunting habitat, which will
complement the grassland/upland game
focus of the existing CRP-MAP.
However, land cannot be enrolled in
both CRP-MAP and the Open Fields
and Waters Program at the same time.
Hunters and anglers will be allowed
access to enrolled lands and waters
beginning in September 2009.
More information about the Open
Fields and Waters Program can be
found on the Commission’s web site at
www.OutdoorNebraska.org.
Information is also available by request
at Commission district offices in
Lincoln, North Platte, Kearney,
Norfolk, Bassett and Alliance. ■
MARCH 2009 • NEBRASKALAND 11
Photos and text by Eric Fowler
The sign next to the road says “Dead End.”
But what you’ll find at the end of the road –
Martin’s Reach Wildlife Management Area
– is far from dead.
A trio of sandhill cranes flies over the Platte River at Martin’s Reach Wildlife Management
Area as the sun finishes burning its way through the fog of a March morning.
S
tep off what was once the high bank of the Platte
River and into the riparian forest that borders the
river at Martin’s Reach and you enter a world much
different than the one the area’s namesakes grew up in. In
1864, Nathaniel and Robert Martin were working with
their father in a nearby hay meadow when a band of Sioux
Indians attacked. The boys, ages 15 and 12, fled on a horse
with Indians in close pursuit. Nathaniel was hit twice by
their arrows, one of which passed completely through his
body and lodged in Robert’s back, pinning the two together.
Both survived.
LEFT: Beavers were forced to
walk between ponds they’d built
in a slough at Martin’s Reach
when the Platte River and
adjacent groundwater levels
were sapped by drought in
recent years. Two sloughs on
the area have been restored,
one with the help of Ducks
Unlimited.
ABOVE: Returning to Martin’s
Reach on a dreary March morning
after feeding in cropland south
of the Platte, a herd of whitetailed deer wades through the
main channel and a gaggle of
fowl that includes Canada geese
and sandhill cranes.
RIGHT: Cottonwood trees that
thrive on the area create a
“snowstorm” on a June day.
14 NEBRASKALAND • MARCH 2009
A
rrows still fly at Martin’s
Reach, where 18,000 vehicles
whiz by each day on Interstate 80.
Hunters fire most of the arrows
at white-tailed deer, and a few at
turkeys. Where cedars and shrubs
were removed from the understory
of the cottonwood forest that
separates the grassland on the
north edge of the property from
the Platte River along the south,
those species can now find grasses
and wildflowers where they once
found only cover.
MARCH 2009 • NEBRASKALAND 15
C
ross the clearing and you’ll
find a restored slough. Step to
its edge in late spring and you
might flush a hen wood duck and
her brood. Peer into its waters and
you’re likely to see tadpoles and
minnows. You might even catch a
glimpse of one of the beavers that
have built several dams in the
slough. If you didn’t bring waders,
those dams are the bridges on
your trail to the Platte.
16 NEBRASKALAND • MARCH 2009
ABOVE: A mushroom-shaped
cloud glows over the Platte at
sunset on a February day, ironic
considering the battles over
water during the midst of a
drought that sapped the river.
LEFT: Muskrats are one of many
wildlife species that frequent the
sloughs on Martin’s Reach.
RIGHT: Four northern pintail
drakes follow a hen on a highspeed, acrobatic courtship flight
above the Platte River on an
early-March evening. About a
third of the continent’s two to
three million pintails stop on the
Platte or nearby Rainwater Basin
wetlands each spring.
MARCH 2009 • NEBRASKALAND 17
C
ross a second restored slough and you’ll reach the Platte.
In the summer, you can kick off your shoes and explore a
half mile of river frontage or go for a swim. In the fall and
winter, a hearty soul can pack in decoys and have a good
chance of bagging a Canada goose. In the spring you can
watch tens of thousands of waterfowl and sandhill cranes fly
past or roost on the river. You might even spot an endangered
whooping crane, which was the impetus for clearing trees from
a 17-acre island in the river, a project that also benefited all bird
species that prefer a broad, open channel laced with sandbars.
There are only a handful of places in the famed Big Bend reach
of the Platte River where the general public is free to visit the
main channel. The only trails here are maintained by boot
leather and deer hooves. And there are no viewing blinds, only
riverside brush. So be careful not to disturb the cranes. ■
ABOVE: The wide-open spaces created by an island-clearing project and ongoing clearing of the Platte River at
Martin’s Reach, which sits opposite a tract owned by the Platte River Whooping Crane Trust, have made the
area one of the largest sandhill crane roosts on the river.
RIGHT: A project funded in part by the National Wild Turkey Federation’s Southern Great Plains Riparian
Initiative thinned cottonwoods and cleared an understory choked with eastern red cedar and gray leaf
dogwood to restore an open, savannah-like grassland in the middle of Martin’s Reach that benefits wild
turkeys, deer, quail and songbirds such as orioles, goldfinches and bobolinks.
18 NEBRASKALAND • MARCH 2009
MARCH 2009 • NEBRASKALAND 19
ILLUSTRATION BY TIM REIGERT
This Wild City
By Lisa Knopp
A walk through the world of wolverines, wolves and wild men.
walk. One of my favorite routes
takes me to a street near the center
of Lincoln where, many decades
ago, the residents on both sides of the
street planted honey locusts. These
aren’t wild honey locusts, whose trunks
and branches bristle with clusters of
single or branched thorns. Rather, these
are smooth-trunked varieties created for
city dwellers who want the locust’s
open, lacy shade without the risk of
puncture wounds.
One spring evening as I was walking
the sun-dappled street beneath the
locusts, I saw an old man and a collie
heading toward me. Each time I had
seen this pair before, I had been
walking my beagle. When the collie
saw my dog, she barked and wheezed,
pulling so hard on her leash that the old
man dug in his heels and threw himself
back, as if he were trying to control a
rearing horse. As he yanked on her
chain, the man barked at me: “Stay on
your side of the road! Stay on your side
of the road!” I always complied. But on
I
20 NEBRASKALAND • MARCH 2009
this day, I’d left my dog at home; the
man and the collie were calm.
As we drew near, the dog stopped
to sniff my shoes. I patted her on the
head.
“This is Grace,” the man said. “She
thinks she’s a guard dog.” I greeted
Grace and introduced myself. “My
name’s Roy,” the man said. Roy was
so bent that his chin was only a few
inches above his trousers, which were
belted just beneath his armpits. His
jaws and chin were bristled with gray
whiskers. The hairs around Grace’s
mouth were white.
“How old is she?”
“She’s 12. She can’t hear anymore,”
Roy shouted.
“You must feel safe with such a
fierce and protective dog.”
“She’s not as fierce as she thinks she
is.” Roy looked at me over the top of
his glasses. His eyes were cloudy and
blue. “I don’t know what she’d do if
she saw a wolverine.”
I was stunned. No one had ever
spoken to me of wolverines. “Grace
doesn’t have much to worry about,”
I said. “There haven’t been wolverines
in Nebraska for a long time.”
“There used to be,” Roy said, raising
his wiry, gray eyebrows. “But when
people came in and settled the place,
the wolverines left. Now you have to
go to Canada or Alaska or Siberia if
you want to see one.”
I tried to recall a picture of a
wolverine. When my daughter was in
sixth grade, she’d researched wolverines
for her endangered species project.
I had read her report and had seen the
pictures of wolverines that she’d
downloaded from the Internet. But now
all I could call forth was a sketchy
image of a bearlike creature. The only
thing I remembered about the stuffed
and mounted specimen in the Hall of
Nebraska Wildlife display at Morrill
Hall was the fierce expression on its
face. If I ran into a wolverine, I might
not recognize it as such.
“They only stand about this tall,”
Roy said, holding his purple-spotted
hand mid-thigh. “Don’t weigh as much
as Grace does. But pound for pound,
they’re the meanest animal on earth.
Wolves and cougars won’t go near ‘em.
They’re sneaky, greedy cusses. People
call ‘em gluttons ‘cause they’ll eat
anything. They’ll take the minks or
beavers outta your traps and eat ‘em.
If their gut’s full, they’ll still take your
game and cache up in a tree.” Roy
pointed to the locust branches overhead.
“Then, they’ll climb up and get it later.
If you got food in your cabin, they’ll
break in and steal it and leave a foul
odor so you’ll know who did it. Skunk
bears. People also call them devil-bears
‘cause they rumble and growl like
grizzlies.” Roy paused. “But nothing can
move through the snow like a wolverine.
They hump along like this.” His gnarled
hand undulated through the air.
I supposed that the wolverine was
Roy’s totem animal. “You must really
admire wolverines,” I said.
“Oh, yes.” Roy paused. “But the
wolf’s mine.” He liked that wolves are
elusive, hunt cooperatively and mate
for life. But his description of wolves
wasn’t as wild or as vivid as his
description of wolverines. Roy may
love wolves, but wolverines inspire him.
We discussed the pros and cons of
reintroducing wolves into national
parks. Roy didn’t have much faith
in anyone involved in the situation –
environmentalists, ranchers or
politicians. “Nobody will leave ‘em
alone,” he concluded. I asked if Grace
was better equipped to handle a wolf
than a wolverine.
“She won’t have to. Wolves are
going the way of wolverines. It won’t
be too long before you have to go to
Canada or Siberia if you what to see
one.”
I bid Grace and Roy good evening
and continued my walk beneath the
honey locusts. Perhaps when Roy
walks this street he sees a landscape
remarkable not for what is there but for
what is not. Perhaps when Roy walks
here, he sees carnivores hunting,
breeding, howling, humping along,
scavenging and thieving; wild men
running traps and drying skins; mountain
lions moving through the strips of
woodlands, following the rivers and
creeks; vast expanses of open land.
Perhaps he sees himself and Grace as
swift, supple and among them.
I turned and headed home. Rabbits
fled at my approach. A pair of squirrels
startled me when they dropped from a
tree, tumbled on the grass before me
and one chased the other up a pin oak.
I crossed a cement-lined creek where
I saw a snapping turtle the size of
a dinner plate moving through the
water. I passed a yard where a great
Dane, reposing sphinx-like near the
feet of a woman sitting in a lawn chair,
bolted when he saw two corgies
walking a man on the other side of the
street. The great Dane pulled its cord
taut against the chair legs, toppling the
woman and the chair. She cursed the
dog as she brushed off her backside
and righted her chair.
When I walk after dark I see owls
perched atop utility poles, so still you’d
think they were carved from wood. I
see raccoons entering and exiting the
sewers or padding down driveways in
search of garbage cans. I see bats
hunting and feasting on the wing.
I see opossums waddling across lawns,
scaling fences or trees, or smashed and
split open in the street, a gang of crows
picking their flesh. When I step outside
in the morning to smell the air, I find
partially eaten moles or mice or finches
outside my back door, evidence of how
my cat spent the night in this wild city.
And I remember that not far from here
is a person who has not banished
wolverines to some far away tundra,
but allows them to range freely in the
forefront of consciousness. ■
Lisa Knopp is a teacher and writer
who lives in Lincoln.
MARCH 2009 • NEBRASKALAND 21
This Dam House
Text and photos by Eric Fowler
Sleeping atop a river is not for everyone, but
for this family there’s no place they’d rather
call home.
T
here are plenty of Nebraskans
who have houses along the Big
Blue River. But only one family
literally lives on the river like Bill and
Kim Petersen and their son, Luke, who
can look out windows on three sides of
their home and see its waters below.
Of course, theirs isn’t your average
home. It was formerly the powerhouse
on a dam near Barneston. A dam house,
you might call it.
“We’ve heard them all,” laughed
Kim. “I’m the dam girl, and … .” The
list goes on.
Bill bought the dam, powerhouse and
76 acres of land for $36,000 from the
Norris Rural Public Power District at
auction in 1986 after the company
decommissioned the plant and sold
its two 450 kilovolt General Electric
generators. “Originally I bought it just
thinking I’d kind of fix it up a little bit
for a place to hunt and fish, but I didn’t
have any plans on living in there,” said
Bill, a DeWitt native who was living and
working in Beatrice at the time. “Then
when I got to looking at it, and I was
single at the time, I thought, ‘You know,
this would be a great place to live.’”
Converting the cavernous building,
measuring 42 feet by 31 feet with a
22-foot ceiling and 13-inch thick walls,
into a home was a challenge, especially
when it came to the round concrete
bases that once held the generators.
“That’s all reinforced concrete, 2½- to
3-feet thick, and to bust it out of here to
do something else would’ve been a major
job,” Bill said. “It was easier just to make
something out of it or build over it.”
So five steps lead from the ground
floor to the kitchen, which was built on
top of one of the bases. The other was
faced with brick and wood and topped
with a counter to form a circular bar
that seats 14.
The home’s second floor is suspended
from the roof, with two bedrooms on
one side of its H-shaped floor plan and
a bedroom and bath on the other. None
of the rooms have doors and the walls
With its roots exposed by the scouring flows of the Big Blue River, a cottonwood stands on the bank
downstream from the Barneston Dam powerhouse that Bill and Kim Petersen call home.
While the exterior of the powerhouse is nondescript, the interior, including a kitchen
built atop the concrete base that once supported a generator, is not.
22 NEBRASKALAND • MARCH 2009
only extend four feet off the floor.
While that doesn’t offer much privacy,
it does allow heat produced by a single
wood-burning stove and circulated by
five ceiling fans to warm the entire
house. Only when they’re away for
days do they run their furnace.
The construction still causes
challenges, particularly cooling. All
but the south wall of the house were
insulated and covered with oak paneling.
In the winter, that wall soaks up sunlight,
which radiates through the home well
after sundown. But despite the insulation,
the west wall forces heat into the home
when the summer sun bears down on it
in the afternoon. “We run our air
conditioning six months or longer,”
Kim said. “This place isn’t shaded. We
just stick out here like a sore thumb.”
The exposed brick of the south wall
does add character to the home. So do
the steel I-beams that served as a track
that crane workers used to service the
generators but which now support
lighter ware, including books.
The thick walls insulate the home
from the sound of water rushing
through the dam’s gates, but don’t keep
the residents from hearing an occasional
bang or ping produced when logs
bounce off the concrete pillars and
steel gates during high water.
When the water is really high, simply
getting home can be a challenge for the
Petersens. During the flood of 1993 they
had to drive through two feet of water
– past carp and catfish – to get to their
garage, which Bill had thoughtfully
built on a berm well above the highwater mark.
Remodeling was well underway
when Bill met Kim in 1987. The two
were dating when she and some friends
crashed a party Bill was hosting. “We
walked in and I’m like, ‘Wow. I’d like
to live here.’ And I said, ‘Gosh, Bill, do
you want to get married?’ And he said
‘Yeah, I do.’” The words proved to be
prophetic. In 1988, they were married
and moved into the house, along with
Kim’s daughter, Jessie.
“Yeah, I thought this would be a great
bachelor pad and then I ended up getting
married shortly after it was done, so it
didn’t work out quite like that,” Bill
joked. “If I would’ve built it with a
home and family in mind, I probably
would’ve done something with this big
space other than having a big bar.”
The powerhouse is the only home
Luke, now a freshman at Southern
High School in Wymore, has lived in.
And as you might expect of someone
who lives in something he can write
about for a school history paper, Luke
has a keen interest in dams and rivers.
He spends time “flying” over rivers on
Google Earth and locating dams. And
he’s spent many hours reviewing
reports, blueprints and other information
MARCH 2009 • NEBRASKALAND 23
Luke Petersen lands a flathead catfish while fishing below the gates with his father, Bill, who has caught a 77-pound flathead fishing
there. At certain times during the year, fish moving upstream congregate in the hole below the dam. “One time when it was raining
and cold and all I wanted was one to eat, I was catching 15- to 20-pound channel cats as fast as I could reel them in,” Bill said.
on the dam that Norris Public Power
gave Bill when he bought it, as well as
other resources, and is now the family’s
expert on the subject.
“I like dams and rivers and lakes and
stuff like that, and I just wanted to know
the history of this one,” Luke said.
The village of Barneston was founded
in 1884 on the site of the Otoe and
Missouri Indian Agency by F.M.
Barnes, who had operated a general
store at the agency since 1873. Work
on the powerhouse and dam, located
west of town, began in 1919 and was
completed in 1923.
“They got all of the rock from the west
side to make the concrete,” Luke said,
explaining the faded photographs the
family has of the construction project.
Steam engines powered the derrick and
the rock crushers. “They had a derrick
on each side and they had a cable that
went across and they would fill this
bucket with concrete and pour it.”
And they used a lot of concrete. The
entire structure measures 404 feet
between the retaining walls. The spillway
24 NEBRASKALAND • MARCH 2009
on the western portion of the dam is
250 feet long and 30 feet high with a
base 30 feet thick. On the eastern end
is the powerhouse. In the middle are
four 24-foot-wide steel tainter gates
supported by four-foot-thick concrete
piers that rise 46 feet from bedrock.
Workers lived in a house on the west
bank of the river, the foundation of
which still stands. A swinging bridge
spanned the river, making the walk to
work a short one for those who toiled
on the east bank. Barneston residents
used the bridge to monitor progress of
the work. Floodwaters claimed the
bridge twice. It was rebuilt after the first
flood, but not after the flood of 1941.
Planning the dam took much longer
than the construction. A process that
began in 1905 led to the formation of
the Beatrice Power Company by local
businessmen, including George
Steinmeyer, and investors. It was delayed
by a legal battle over who had rights to
develop the site, thanks to the state
engineer’s office granting those rights
to two individuals. Work began on the
project despite the legal questions, and
in 1921, the Nebraska Supreme Court
confirmed the right of Steinmeyer, who
was also the engineer for the project.
In 1921, the editors of the Beatrice
Daily Express clamored for the
completion of the project and the
projected 3.8 megawatts of energy it
would produce. Steinmeyer had built
another hydroelectric dam 12 miles
upstream at Holmesville in 1911. Its
capacity, however, was about a third of
what the Barneston Dam would produce.
Express editors believed both plants
would produce enough power to “make
Gage County the manufacturing center
of Southern Nebraska.”
Industry first harnessed the waters of
the Big Blue River in 1957, the year
Beatrice was founded and 10 years
before Nebraska became a state. But
most were dependent on the “coal
barons,” their power plants and the
whims of the miners and railroads and
the propensity of their workers to
strike. The Big Blue River, the Express
said, would be more dependable, and
produce power “sufficient to run all of
the factories, and more as they come
along. Not only turn the wheels but light
the cities, towns and farm homes, giving
them a chance to cook with electricity.”
Barneston and its 258 residents –
twice as many as the 122 who live there
today – used only a fraction of the
electricity the plant produced, including
some to light the river for nighttime
ice-skating parties at the dam that drew
up to 200 people.
The plant also served Liberty,
Rockford, Filley, Crab Orchard,
Lewiston, Adams, Mayberry, Virginia,
Odell, Krider, Diller, Lanham and
Steele City, as well as Hanover, Kansas.
Farms within five miles of the
transmission line could also tap its
power, allowing those folks to do away
with gas lights and candles years
before the Rural Electrification Act
(REA), passed in 1933, began bringing
power to much of rural America.
The remaining 98 percent of the power
produced was sold to the Nebraska Gas
and Electric Company, which delivered
the power to its customers in eastern
Nebraska, southwestern Iowa and
northwestern Missouri.
“They had flash boards going over
the dam to make water two foot higher
so they could make just a little more
power,” Luke said. Of course, raging
floodwaters were not kind to the steel
rods that held those boards in place. In
photos taken during the flood of 1993,
the dam’s spillway appears to be little
more than a speed bump. “In 1941, it
was higher than that,” Luke said,
referring to one of the area’s worst
floods on record.
The Central States Edison Company
of Chicago bought the plant in 1927,
ironically a year in which drought and
low river flows forced a shutdown of the
plant. Passage of the REA led to the
creation of Nebraska’s public power
system, the Norris Public Power District
and its purchase of the Barneston Dam.
Maintenance problems required the
dam to be shut down in 1978. Norris
refurbished and restarted the plant in
1982, but soon after it closed for good.
It’s unlikely that the power dam
would’ve been operational much longer
without a greater investment, as its
steel gates were showing their age.
Unusually warm weather that followed
a cold snap in 1993 caused the ice
behind the dam to break up and pile
against the gates, crushing one of them.
It wasn’t the first trouble they had
with a gate. The gate closest to the
house was damaged and leaking, so
Bill sealed it with concrete and built a
deck over the top of it. Another was
reinforced with a steel plate before it
could break.
The two operational gates are now left
open. Except when the river is running
full tilt, water now rushes through those
openings rather than forming an
18-foot-deep pool behind the dam and
gently flowing over the spillway.
“When it held water you could put a jet
ski or a fishing boat on here and you
could go at least three miles upstream
and have deep water to mess around
in,” Bill said. Now farmers upriver can
no longer easily pump water from the
reservoir to irrigate their fields. They
also no longer call Bill and ask him to
open the gates and drain the reservoir
when the forecast calls for heavy rains.
The worst part about losing the gate
is that the dam isn’t as aesthetically
pleasing as it was when water was
Kim Petersen relaxes in the living room, which includes a bar built atop a generator
support, a fireplace and a wood stove that heats the entire house thanks to the
open design of the second floor.
MARCH 2009 • NEBRASKALAND 25
flowing over the spillway. And having
the water rushing past right below the
deck instead of 100 feet away makes
casual conversation more difficult.
“[Luke] would love to have [the
broken gate] fixed, but it’s probably
not going to happen unless we win the
lottery,” Bill said. “I wouldn’t even know
who you would call. If a guy was going
to do anything, you would probably
form it up and pour concrete in there to
the level of the other gates and then
26 NEBRASKALAND • MARCH 2009
you still got two operational gates.
One’s enough. For the life of me, I
don’t know why they put four of them
in here anyway. None of these other
dams have any gates at all other than
maybe a small one.”
The thought of living in a dam house
didn’t scare her away, but Kim said
raising kids on the river was a challenge.
Luke “would’ve crawled right off the
end” of the deck built over the first
state. Bobcats are a common sight.
And there are plenty of channel and
flathead catfish in the river. While fishing
was one of the reasons Bill bought the
place, he admits he doesn’t fish as
much as he should.
“It’s one of those deals where if I
didn’t live here, it’s the kind of place I
would drive quite a ways to fish,” Bill
said last fall. “But since I live here, I
always think I can go fishing tomorrow,
so I haven’t fished much at all this
summer, partly because of high water
and partly because like this time of
year, when the yellow cats (flatheads)
are biting, I’ve been hauling silage and
just haven’t had time.
“But yeah, I really do like to fish
here as much as I can, and we all like
to eat catfish.”
Bill retired from banking and was a
charter pilot until recently. These days,
he works on a neighbor’s farm during
harvest, takes care of a small farm the
family owns, and keeps the woodpile
stocked for winter. He has harvested
several trophy whitetails on the place,
mounts of which adorn the walls of the
home, but work tends to get in the way
of hunting these days, too.
“On the west side of the property,
that’s really good deer hunting. It’s
heavily wooded. There’s lots of deer
right around here, too. They cross the
river down below this place every
morning and every evening. I’ve never
done it, but if you lay up on top of the
roof with a rifle, that would probably be
as good a deer stand as you could get.”
Bill hunts pheasants and quail when
he has time. He doesn’t hunt waterfowl,
but thinks he could do well on ducks
and geese on the sandbar below the
dam, especially after it gets cold and
the area below the dam is the only open
water around. Bald eagles like the open
water in the winter, too, and a pair has
nested in a dead cottonwood across the
river in recent years as well.
Canada geese have nested on the
sandbar, and a pair even nested on the
crest of the spillway after the gate
broke and water no longer flowed over
the top of it. “She apparently got them
out okay, but I wondered after they
hatched how she was going to get those
young out of there,” Bill said.
The novelty of the home has had its
drawbacks. When they moved in,
newspaper articles drew attention to
the unique home. More recently the
home was featured on an episode of
“reZONED” on Home & Garden
Television.
“When we first moved here, every
weekend you could just count on
somebody just stopping in, which was
fine when we didn’t have kids. We both
worked, but we were young and the
more the merrier,” Kim said. “But then
things get busy and you’ve got to mow
and you’ve got to clean house. Then
you just get these people stopping by
out of the blue. My husband doesn’t
mind it, but I don’t care for it. You feel
you’ve got to give strangers a tour of
your home.”
Anglers once had open access to the
property, but waking up to a yard full
of pickups grew tiresome. The final
straw came when they returned home
to find people they didn’t know on
their deck and someone riding their
lawn mower. “The nerve of some
people,” Kim said.
But despite the challenges, Bill is
happy he chose to live in the dam
house, and Kim’s happy she joined
him there.
“It’s different and it’s not for
everybody but there’s nowhere else I’d
rather live,” Bill said. ■
PHOTO COURTESY OF GAGE COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY
A deck above the first gate on the dam, which was sealed with concrete after it fell into
disrepair, provides the Petersens a place to relax.
gate if given the chance, Kim said.
“I still tell people, ‘If you fall into
that hydraulic, we just can’t save you –
there’s just no way. And you’d
probably hit concrete if the water was
low,’” Kim said. “That kind of scares
kids and they know not to mess around.”
But as time passed, the kids grew up
and took swimming lessons, and such
concerns vanished. “I always tell people
I’m not scared of anything he does out
here,” Kim said of Luke. “He can go
swimming or mess around in the dam
or whatever, but when he was young it
scared me to death to send him to town
on a bike. It’s just what you grow up
around.”
A kayak and johnboat sit on the bank
below the house. Luke and his friends
get plenty of use out of both. They fish,
paddle and swim in the river. When
high flows recede, they scour the bank
for arrowheads and other artifacts.
While seining minnows one year, they
even snagged a buffalo skull which is
now displayed in the family room.
Most of the land that came with the
property is across the river from the
house. There, near the site of Beatrice
YMCA’s former Camp Otoe, which
drew area residents for bible and nature
studies and other activities until it
closed in 1940, Bill keeps an area
cleared and mowed for gatherings of
family and friends. Bill and Kim drive
to Barneston and across the Highway 8
bridge to the property. Luke usually
takes the johnboat or kayak. “I don’t
want to go six miles to get 100 yards,”
he said.
It doesn’t happen often, but when the
river is low enough, the family climbs
down a ladder on the downstream side
of the dam and sits in the tumble bays
basin below the gates. The flowing
water creates a soothing hot-tub effect,
but isn’t for folks who don’t like fish
bouncing off their legs and feet.
“There’s lots of wildlife,” Kim said
of the property. “We’ve had snapping
turtles in our front yard. I looked out
one morning and there were 20 wild
turkeys on our driveway. We’ve had
beaver crossing the yard and of course
the usual deer, fox and others. We had
to trap coons last year because they
were getting my chickens.” University
of Omaha herpetologists tell them the
area has the highest concentration of
timber rattlers and copperheads in the
Work on the Barneston Dam began with the base of the powerhouse on the east bank of the Big Blue River in 1919. Rock was
quarried from the west bank for the concrete, which was mixed and hauled across the river on a cable strung between two derricks.
MARCH 2009 • NEBRASKALAND 27
The Light Goose Conservation Action
10 years later and beyond
By Jeff Kurrus
control measures for mid-continent
light geese for 24 mid-western and
southern states. This “Light Goose
Conservation Action” allowed, and still
allows, the unlimited killing of light
geese during their spring migration
with unplugged guns, electronic callers
and extended daily shooting hours. Yet
ask how these birds should be managed
now and in the future in a continual
attempt to “save the tundra,” and the
list of answers is long and varied –
answers that force both hunters and
nonhunters to draw lines in the sand
regarding their ethical beliefs on how
all wildlife should be managed.
A Large, White Problem
At the 2008 Central Flyway
Waterfowl Technical Committee meeting
in Great Bend, Kansas, Ray Alisauskas,
a research scientist with Environment
PHOTO BY JEFF KURRUS
“There will be a catastrophic die-off
of light geese leaving denuded and
useless Arctic nesting grounds that may
require decades to fully recover and
few young, strong birds to begin
rebuilding the populations, or more
drastic population controls such as
commercial harvesting, trapping and
killing large numbers of geese for food
or other products, and harassment of
nesting geese or destruction of nests
and eggs will have to be implemented.”
Thus wrote P. Joe Gabig and Jon
Farrar in their January/February 1999
NEBRASKAland article entitled
“Hunting Solutions to the Snow Goose
Dilemma.”
Ten years later and the problem
remains with the mid-continent’s light
goose (blue and white-phased lesser
snow goose and Ross’s goose) population
even after President Clinton’s 1999
legislation allowed interim population
PHOTO BY JEFF KURRUS
A plethora of snow goose decoy designs cover hunting guide Keith Brown’s Jefferson County field.
Snow geese use their serrated beak to uproot plants. At Hudson Bay, where the midcontinent’s population stages each year, less than 30 percent of the habitat remains.
28 NEBRASKALAND • MARCH 2009
Canada, estimated the mid-continent’s
snow goose population to be 25 million
birds, based on the total harvest of
geese estimated by Canadian and
United States federal agencies, divided
by the harvest rate, which is determined
from banding studies in the Arctic and
hunter recoveries in both Canada and
the United States. Robert Rockwell,
American Museum of Natural History
biologist and director of the Hudson
Bay Project, said that while Alisauskas’
number seems high, it is not the most
important issue with snow geese. “It’s
not that there are too many geese,” he
said. “Their total number is difficult to
estimate. What we can monitor is what
these geese are doing to habitat, and
there are more geese than the northern
habitat will support.”
Rockwell witnesses what most of the
rest of the continent does not at
Hudson Bay, where the mid-continent’s
snow goose population stages for a
week or so each year before most of
them move further north to their
breeding grounds. One week too long
according to Rockwell. “Originally at
Hudson Bay, staging snow geese were
supposed to stay in the salt marsh eating
salt marsh grasses and sedges,” said
Rockwell. “But these birds are starting
to move inland, eating multiple freshwater
sedges and other dicotyledonous plants.
Theory originally had it that they
would eat themselves out of a place to
be. Instead, they have shown an
unbelievable adaptability in their diet.”
Lesser snow geese use multiple
feeding patterns, including grubbing
and shoot pulling. Grubbing refers to
digging and uprooting plants, then
discarding the remainder of the plant.
Snow geese do this in the spring when
the ground’s upper layers have thawed
for a few hours each day or after snow
melt. Shoot pulling refers to eating the
white basal portion of the shoots, a part
rich in nitrogen and carbohydrates.
Because of these feeding patterns, less
than 30 percent of Hudson Bay’s habitat
is still intact.
In the place of these plants remains
only moss, which snow geese will not
eat, so they move on to other food
sources. “Once 70 percent of the land
is covered in moss,” said Rockwell,
“the moss gains a competitive edge and
will completely take over a landscape,
even after the snow geese are gone.”
“By expanding into new locations, it
is not just a snow goose or light goose
issue,” said Dale Humburg, Ducks
Unlimited biologist. “They are having
an effect on shorebirds and other
species of birds.” These species include
stilt and semipalmated sandpipers,
Hudsonian godwits, American golden
plovers, and various ducks, including
American wigeon, northern shoveler,
and lesser scaup. Each of these bird
species migrates through Nebraska.
Snow goose expansion also includes
their breeding grounds. “Before 1970,”
said Alisauskas, “lesser snow geese
were not known to occur in large
numbers outside the west coast of
Hudson Bay, Southampton Island and
Baffin Island. Since then, they have
expanded into the central Arctic and
now about 90 percent of mid-continent
snow geese breed around Queen Maud
Gulf, Southampton and Baffin Island;
while only 10 percent breed on the
west and south coasts of Hudson Bay.”
With this expansion, snow geese are
now sharing habitat with Canada geese,
cackling geese and white-fronts in
MARCH 2009 • NEBRASKALAND 29
far west as Texas and Alberta. These
examples provide a glimpse of what
further expansion could look like.
In 1997’s Arctic Ecosystems in Peril:
Report of the Arctic Goose Habitat
Working Group, it was reported that the
then-population of mid-continent lesser
snow geese was between 4.5 million
and 6 million birds. Lesser-snow goose
populations had been indexed annually
since the mid-20th century, and the
mid-winter index for lesser snow geese
rose from 0.8 million in 1969 to 2.9
million in 1998. Around the early 1990s,
a major portion of this mid-continent
population started migrating through
Nebraska during the spring.
Numbers have increased for multiple
reasons since the mid-century. Outside
of the birds displaying the capabilities
Potential Recovery
While less than 30 percent of the habitat is still intact at Hudson
Bay, Rockwell recently stated that not all may be lost. In 2005,
Rockwell and his crews built enclosures to see what would happen
if snow geese were not allowed inside. He was told by other experts
that he needed someone to come back in 25 years to evaluate
these areas, but Rockwell said the areas were already experiencing
recovery in only two years – much faster than the unfenced spots.
“There is definitely a potential for recovery if we get rid of the
geese,” he said. “And it’s not the resident geese that are the real
problem. It is the migrants. In 2009 we are hoping to build 20 meter
by 20 meter plots to check recovery potential.”
Steps like this are not long-term answers to recovery, for there is
not the manpower or resources to fence in the entire Arctic. But it
does give an answer to the potential for recovery. If, and only if, as
Rockwell would say, the snow geese can be eliminated or reduced
to carrying-capacity levels.
PHOTO COURTESY OF ROBERT ROCKWELL
30 NEBRASKALAND • MARCH 2009
to expand their wintering habitat, the
increase in cultivation gives them areas
to forage continent-wide. Because stored
reserves are extremely important at
determining breeding success, the birds
are well suited to survive through the
midwestern and northern prairies that
are laced with corn, wheat, barley, oats
and rye cultivation. In addition, there are
more refuges continent-wide that offer
protection and food supplies nearby.
Yet their migrations are also starting
with stronger breeding classes. Because
of a general warming trend since 1961,
the mid-continent snow goose population
increase positively correlates with early
spring melts, translating to more southerly
nesting colonies and additional young.
Conservation Inaction
With this increase in numbers,
liberalization of shooting regulations
and the introduction of the
Conservation Action, biologists hoped
that 1.4 million snow geese could be
killed per year (from both the regular
and Conservation Action seasons) for
five years. At that point, their numbers
would start to be controlled. Yet since
the inception of the Conservation Action,
there has never been a year with a light
goose harvest of 1.4 million.
Tactics that experts thought devastating
to snow goose populations only offered
short-term results. “Many hunters and
commercial hunting guides are
convinced that permitting the use of
electronic calls would greatly enhance
the harvest of snow geese … it is not
known if snow geese would learn to
avoid electronic calls after several
years of use,” wrote North Dakota
Game and Fish Department biologist
Michael Johnson in 1997.
In the spring of 2008, however,
waterfowl guide Keith Brown was sitting
in a Jefferson County blind with
hundreds of snow goose decoys at his
back and an electronic caller sounding
off at every flight of geese that passed.
Above the blind, what seemed like
millions of white specs moved across
the sky, yet few slowed, and even fewer
circled the shooters below despite the
electronic snow goose cackles filling
the air. “Times have changed in the last
10 years,” he said, another group
ignoring his spread. “The first year of
the Conservation Action, we killed
1,800 birds. Nowadays we’ll
shoot a couple hundred a
year.”
“Snow geese have
concentrated in larger numbers
on refuges,” said Humburg.
“They nest colonially and are
highly gregarious in
migration, tending to be in
large flocks. A flock of 10,000
snow geese has 20,000 eyes
and a high proportion of
adults. The impact of day in
and day out harvest pressure
has affected their behavior.”
“The first years they came
to the electronic callers so
easy,” said Brown. “It seemed
like every one of those flocks
came in. Or you’d go out and
cowboard and shoot 100
birds in one shooting.
Nowadays, it isn’t happening
unless you’re a young fellow
using a layout blind.”
One of those fellows is
Eric Moran, who hunts in
Squaw Creek Valley, the Rainwater
Basin and near Tecumseh. “Staying
hid is our number one priority.
Speaking with Mike Remund,
biologist from the Nebraska Game and
Parks Commission, he said it was
amazing how easy blinds and decoy
spreads could be spotted when
conducting aerial surveys.” This is
where Moran’s layout blinds, as well as
more life-like decoys spreads, come in.
“We include a lot of dark geese in our
spreads. All-white spreads look like
decoys. Mixing darks and lights, and
spreading out little groups throughout a
spread, makes them look more real.”
But Moran’s time allows him the most
success. “I am fortunate that I have a
job that lets me hunt a lot of days
during the season. I sit through many
birdless days each year, but also have
several days when they really want to
work.”
Those days, however, are anomalies.
Overall, shooters are just not killing
enough snow geese. “Since the
Conservation Action began,” said
Commission waterfowl biologist Mark
Vrtiska, “there hasn’t been any new
revelation in techniques. In the
predator-prey relationship, the prey
runs faster, does something better. The
predator needs to either run faster too,
PHOTO BY MARK VRTISKA
some areas.
Even with their 10 percent yearly
mortality rates, snow geese numbers
continue to grow. According to
Alisauskas, the annual rate of increase
at the Queen Maud Gulf Bird Sanctuary
was 8.9 percent from 1993 to 1998.
From 1998 to 2007 that number was
4.5 percent. While the rate of growth
has declined, habitat is still being
damaged beyond repair (see sidebar) as
the geese continually expand their
staging and breeding grounds and
migration routes. Some lesser snow
geese, traditionally linked to the midcontinent, are being recovered in both
the Pacific and the Atlantic flyways. In
addition, greater snow geese, historically
linked to the Atlantic Flyway, are now
being recovered in the mid-continent as
Thousands of snow geese pass through Nebraska each year, including
this large population of birds on Grandpa’s Pit near Kearney.
or change tactics to catch the prey.
Snow geese have adapted; hunters have
not.”
Of the 7,000 to 8,000 snow goose
hunters in Nebraska, more than 80
percent are using decoys, yet many are
experiencing the same results of
Brown. “Hunters are starting to use
more realistic decoys to kill snow
geese,” said Vrtiska, “trading quality
over quantity. But it’s still not enough.”
The Killing Season
Either because of expense or the
inability to decoy birds, some hunters
elect to stalk large quantities of geese,
shooting into massive groups when
within range. However, this practice
has its opponents, even among fellow
hunters, who worry that these shooters
are wounding unnecessary amounts of
birds, possibly killing other species of
waterfowl intermingled with snow
geese, or are not cleaning the massive
amounts of birds that can be killed
from a single shoot. Should people care
about any of these points, or is the
Conversation Action supposed to be about
killing snow geese, and nothing more?
“I don’t think that’s the way you
approach this thing,” said Vrtiska. “You
have to try to control these birds in a
very smart way.” Because Nebraska has
a number of regulations regarding its
Conservation Action light goose season,
Vrtiska has come across multiple hunters
who fail to understand why there are any
restrictions at all, regardless of what
public ground is hunted. “‘Don’t you
want me to just kill these things?’ they’ll
ask. Some hunters act as if they should
be allowed to machine-gun snow geese
down,” said Vrtiska. “But we’re not at
that point yet. I didn’t, and I don’t think
many people did, anticipate that shooters
would feel justified to do anything they
wanted regarding this season.”
Recently, a group of hunters on an
online forum posted the following
messages concerning the light goose
conservation season:
From Hunter No. 1: Hunting is not
about numbers of birds killed. It’s
about fair chase and the quality of the
experience. It’s about watching
thousands of geese spiraling out of the
sky toward your spread and anticipating
the call of “take em.” Jumping up over
a dam or fence line shooting 8 to 10
shots at a wall of [snow] geese isn't a
sport in my book.
From Hunter No. 2: I think you need
to understand that the spring snow
goose season is not about "fair chase."
It is about slaughtering as many as
MARCH 2009 • NEBRASKALAND 31
Hunters are playing a key role as it
pertains to snow goose population
management. We constantly stress the
need for people to respect their role and
stay within the ethical boundaries and
respect for waterfowl resources. I
understand why people are concerned.
Very easily it could be a black eye for
waterfowl conservation because the
snow goose issue approaches that
ethical boundary very quickly.
— Dale Humburg, Ducks Unlimited Biologist
opportunistic foragers. They have a
serrated beak and know how to use it.
They are survivors. So if hunting can’t
control it, then someone has to decide
if they want to preserve habitat.”
Commercial hunting has been
discussed, but can the number of birds
support a commercial venture? “It is
going to take cooperation with native
What Now?
32 NEBRASKALAND • MARCH 2009
PHOTO COURTESY OF MARK VRTISKA
“At this point in time, we probably
have gone as far as we can go with
traditional methods of control,” said
Humburg. “We have probably utilized
all available methods that are socially
acceptable. As we approach the
intersection between biologically
effective and socially acceptable, we
challenge ourselves in ways that the
wildlife profession and citizenry have
not been challenged in many instances.”
“Someone has to make a simple
decision,” said Rockwell. “Snow geese
are going to continue degrading northern
habitat. They are destructive,
Despite the large amounts of snow geese killed each year, the desired continent-wide
harvest, since the inception of the Conservation Action, has never been accomplished.
of waste,” said Alisauskas. “We do not
want to cheapen the birds. So there are
two options. Accept what we are doing
now, pursuing geese all year-round, or
go to direct control.”
“Killing a female is like stomping on
a nest for 8 years, or equivalently,
killing 8 nests,” said Rockwell. “An
adult female is worth about 32 eggs
because of the length of time she lives.
By randomly killing females across all
age classes, the snow goose population
could be stabilized. However, let us
assume that Ray’s [Alisauskas) numbers
are correct at 25 million, and the
population is growing 6 percent a year.
That means hunters would have to
shoot 6 percent of 25 million, or 1.5
million geese each year, just to hold the
population at 25 million, 20 times larger
than the environment can maintain.
That number has not been achieved for
even one year yet, so hunting as it is
currently being done is not the answer.”
Despite the ongoing discussions
regarding this issue through the years,
it is still difficult, as Humburg stated,
for many to analyze a situation that is
not in their face on a day-to-day basis.
It is probably even more difficult to
comprehend how large the Arctic is and
how detrimental these birds are to this
polar region. Yet how snow geese are
managed continent-wide now and in
the future could become precedent for
how other wildlife species are managed
both locally and internationally.
“For most of the last century,
conservation’s emphasis has been
centered on increasing species, not
decreasing them,” said Humburg. “With
regard to deer management, snow
geese, etc, we are dealing with animals
in excess. We don’t have much of a
history of dealing with the social and
biological conflicts that go along with
this. We have now passed the biological
concerns. It is more of a social issue.”
A current look at Nebraska wildlife
reveals that there are at least two
species that could provide, in the
longterm, issues similar to the ongoing
snow goose dilemma seen continentwide. Nebraska’s deer and turkey permit
regulations reveal a gradual liberalization
of seasons and a continual increase in
harvest, each species breaking records
annually. For example, Nebraska’s
2007 buck harvest was 35 percent higher
than in 1997 and 100 percent higher
PHOTO BY JEFF KURRUS
possible by whatever legal means are
at hand. [Do you think] the Feds have
decreed the season with unlimited kill,
unlimited magazine capacity and
electronic calls for the purpose of "fair
chase"? Get real here! The object is to
eliminate the surplus.
The banter went back and forth, each
hunter interrupted by a list of other
hunters wanting to state their own
opinion. Then one of the hunters made
this statement: Shot over 300 birds
jumping them. How many have you
killed during this season to do your
part? Kill them to save the tundra.
communities up north for people to go
in and harvest huge numbers of geese,”
said Rockwell. “Most native
communities are of a mixed mind
about commercial harvest. Because the
Canadian government has pulled
commercial polar bear hunting away
from those native communities, those
people are going to say, ‘Why is it okay
to kill geese and not polar bears?’”
Another alternative is the destruction
of breeding ground nests. Steps have
already been taken to control “nuisance”
species in multiple cities, including
Canada goose and white-tailed deer
populations. But those who have seen
these areas in lean years can only shake
their heads at these thoughts. “We spend
all this time and money to bring these
species back,” said Brown, “and now
because we don’t want them in our cities
and golf courses, we get rid of them.”
Yet Humburg sees the snow goose
dilemma as altogether different. “We
have seen instances locally where Canada
geese have been controlled through
oiling of eggs, eliminating nests, and
capturing during the post-nest period,”
he said. “But with all of these instances,
we are talking about local influence
where the impacts are clear because the
effects are proximate to people. Snow
geese are different because these birds
are in remote locations and most people
are absolutely unaware of their impact.”
“But we still want to avoid the concept
Nebraska snow goose hunter Eric Moran uses a layout blind during the Conservation
Action to kill snow geese, and is very successful using this technique.
than in 1987; similarly, Nebraska’s
turkey harvest was 200 percent higher
than in 1998 and 400 percent higher
than in 1987. Both species numbers are
at an all-time high.
If these populations continue to
increase, and the number of hunters
does not, then how will officials deal
with these issues? It is quite simple to
come across more than one Nebraska
farmer who has expressed an interest
for hunters to “kill them all” regarding
deer and turkey populations. Issues
with these same two species, as well as
urban Canada geese, have also been
experienced in other parts of the
continent. How long until agencies
have to answer more socially polarizing
questions with species that are not just
passing through? “Keep killing until
the habitat is recovering,” said Rockwell
concerning the mid-continent’s snow
goose population.
Pay close attention to whether
Rockwell gets his wish. How the snow
goose dilemma is handled in the coming
years might just lay the groundwork for
state and national agencies that have been
just a little bit too successful with their
management of other wildlife species. ■
MARCH 2009 • NEBRASKALAND 33
ARRIVAL OF THE RINGNECK
by Jon Farrar
he story of how pheasants were introduced into the
United States from Asia has been written many
times. When and how pheasants were introduced to
Nebraska has been told less often, for good reason –
records of the introduction and spread of ringnecks in
NEBRASKA STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY RG2055-17
T
By the 1920s, pheasants were as abundant as jackrabbits in some
regions of the state. Nebraska’s first pheasant season was in 1927.
34 NEBRASKALAND • MARCH 2009
this state are sparse, if recorded at all. Often they are no more
than passing mention in old newspaper articles or family
memoirs about or by a grandpa who raised and released a
few birds. But the Nebraska account needs to begin with the
wider, better-documented story.
The first ring-necked pheasants apparently were brought
to the United States between 1728 and 1731 to New York
state. That attempt to establish pheasants failed, as did many
others (all apparently in northeastern states) over the next
150 years. The first successful transplant was in Oregon,
where the landscape more closely simulated the bird’s native
habitat. W.L. McAtee, in his 1945 book The Ring-Necked
Pheasant and its Management in North America, summarized
the introduction:
“The Chinese ring-necked pheasant (Phasianus colchicus
torquatus) was successfully transplanted to Oregon in 1881
through the gift of 28 birds by Judge Owen N. Denny, then
United States Consul General at Shanghai, China. Judge
Denny was accustomed to having these birds served on his
table, as they were abundant generally in Chinese markets.
Impressed by the similarity of the climate at Shanghai with
that of Linn County, Oregon, where he lived before going to
China, he conceived the idea of obtaining some of the birds
from these markets and shipping them to his brother’s farm
in the Willamette Valley.”
Several shipments of pheasants left Shanghai, McAtee
wrote, but: “According to rumor, one lot was eaten by the
ship’s crew for a holiday dinner just before reaching the
Pacific Coast of the United States.” Subsequent shipments
arrived safely and the birds were taken to the old Denny
homestead and liberated. The transplanted pheasants and
their offspring “thrived and later provided stock that was
transferred to other parts of the Northwest and even distant
sections of the United States.”
So successful were the pheasant releases that by 1892
Oregon held its first hunting season, lasting two and one-half
months. It was estimated that more than 50,000 pheasants
were shot the first day of the first season. With native game
birds (prairie chickens and sharp-tailed grouse in particular)
declining in the face of expanding agriculture, rudimentary
game departments across the country were scrambling to
find a replacement and pheasants seemed to fill the bill as
not only did they co-exist with agriculture, they flourished.
PHOTO BY JON FARRAR
When pheasants were first introduced in Nebraska will probably
never be determined, but sportsmen and bird fanciers were rearing
and releasing them into the wild at least as early as the 1890s. The
game commission did not rear and release pheasants until 1911.
Pheasants prosper when no more than three-fourths of the land is in crop production, and they require weedy or grassy areas.
Among the early releases by game departments was
California in 1889, Colorado in 1894 and Utah in 1895.
Pheasant stockings by game departments in the Great Plains
states did not become widespread until the mid-1910s.
Published accounts invariably give 1900 as the year
ringnecks first appeared in Nebraska, when privately
released birds in northern Kansas drifted, or proliferated
and spread, into several southeastern Nebraska counties.
“A male specimen of this beautiful bird was shot near
Barneston, Nebraska, December 3, 1900,” Myron Swenk
reported in the Proceedings of the Nebraska Ornithologists’
Union, 1901. “It was in thick brush when shot, the man having
no idea of what he was shooting other than that it was a bird
of some kind.”
When pheasants were first introduced into Nebraska is
unknown, but the revision of state game laws in 1895, stating
it was unlawful to “shoot or otherwise destroy any English
pheasants, China pheasants, Mongolian pheasants, English
Partridge, Belgium Partridge, English Black cocks or any
other variety of imported game birds,” suggests sportsmen
had attempted to stock birds prior to that time.
“It would be interesting to know with what success the
sportsmen of Hastings have met in their efforts to stock the
valley of the Little Blue with that gorgeous game bird, the
Mongolian pheasant,” outdoor writer Sandy Griswold wrote
in the February 2, 1896 edition of the Omaha Bee. Griswold
noted the 1895 statute was passed “in behalf of the parties at
Hastings” but he did not know if the stocked pheasants had
prospered. “Why cannot the legislature at its next session,”
he continued, “make a small appropriation providing for the
introduction of the pheasant in different localities in this
state? The birds are extremely hardy, breed like sparrows,
and the pursuit of them affords the most capital sport.”
“Ten years or so ago it was no uncommon occurrence to
encounter one or more ring-necked pheasants in the brambly
thickets northwest of [Fort] Calhoun,” Griswold reported in
the February 12, 1905 edition of the Omaha World-Herald.
Griswold noted that in the fall of 1896, while hunting quail
there, he had “flushed a flock of seventeen of these beautiful
game birds, and later on inquiry developed that they were
the product of several pair liberated there in ’94 by Dr.
George L. Miller of this city. It is now more than probable
that the plant has long since been exterminated, but the
experiment demonstrated that with proper safeguards thrown
around the birds they could be successfully propagated in
various localities in this state.”
A letter from Dr. Harry M. Elsner of Loup City to
NEBRASKAland in June 1966 related: “I am enclosing a
picture which I took in 1897 of Mr. Aaron Wall of Loup
City. It is my understanding that Mr. Wall was the first in
our area to raise ringneck pheasants which are so much in
the news today. Raising pheasants was a hobby with
MARCH 2009 • NEBRASKALAND 35
Mr. Wall and he continued it until about 1905.”
Just how many game fanciers or sportsmen were importing,
raising and releasing pheasants in the state prior to 1900 is
unknown, but such anecdotal accounts as those above imply
it was not uncommon.
In 1901, the Nebraska Legislature replaced the Nebraska
Fish Commission (established in 1879) with a Game and Fish
Commission. With that change it became the responsibility
of the state to “manage” wildlife beyond what had been done
prior, principally regulating (liberally) hunting seasons.
Concern over the declining abundance of native grouse and
quail, and a prevailing belief that the most successful
response to vanishing game birds was importing exotics, as
the Fish Commission had done for years with carp, must
have pointed the new game commission in the direction of
stocking pheasants. But the small Commission staff was not
even adequate to enforce game laws, much less ponder the
possibilities of introducing pheasants. Private stockings,
though, apparently continued, and probably became even
more common and widespread.
The Spring 1941 edition of Outdoor Nebraska published
an article, “Some Reminiscences of Early Days” by W.A.
Anderson of Ord, recalling the stocking of pheasants.
“About forty years ago I was visiting in Ord with my
friend Charles Partridge,” Anderson wrote. “At that time he
had an idea that the Chinese partridge could be raised in
this country, as he said the prairie chicken and quail were
disappearing rapidly. He was proprietor and owner of the
36 NEBRASKALAND • MARCH 2009
Hotel Ord at that time and known to every traveling man in
the state. That was about the year 1900, if I recall correctly. I
think he had a half dozen birds at that time. He had an old
barn and a screened-in yard for his pheasants. He asked
me to go in with him hatching the eggs. I agreed and he
furnished me two settings of ten eggs each. He had a bantam
hen to do his hatching, but I used ordinary Plymouth Rock
hens and between us we grew the young birds to about the
size of quail.” Anderson selected the northeastern corner of
Valley County, where “there were dense thickets of plum and
buckbrush,” as the site to release the pheasants. “They were
frequently seen that autumn and several survived the winter,”
Anderson recalled.
Commission biologist H. Elliott McClure, in the Winter
1942 issue of Outdoor Nebraska, wrote of the early
introduction of pheasants in Nebraska. He had obtained the
pheasant rearing records of Charles Partridge and gives the
year when Partridge began rearing birds as 1909.
“In 1909 he received the first three pairs of pheasants on
February 11, and had paid for these the sum of $17,”
McClure wrote. “On April 17 one of the hens laid the first
[pheasant] egg laid in Valley County.” Apparently Partridge
was conversant with bird-rearing, as his records show three
of his hens produced 270 eggs in a period of 123 days. “Of
course, as the eggs were taken from the hens as quickly as
they laid them,” McClure continued, “they did not incubate
any, and continued to lay at the rate of about an egg a day.”
Perhaps to give his birds greater genetic diversity, Partridge
cannot be kept in a healthy condition,” Miller continued.
“The appropriation made by the 1911 legislature was too
small to purchase land, secure experienced help, and properly
conduct the propagation of game. If the state expects to
continue this work I would recommend a large enough
appropriation so that a tract of land can be purchased, not
less than 160 acres.”
Miller reported that “in the neighborhood” of 200 pheasants
were liberated across the state and that 432 breeding birds
where held in temporary quarters at Antelope Park in
Lincoln. The stocking program was rather hastily deemed a
failure and the legislature declined to appropriate additional
funds. In 1914 Miller wrote that the breeding stock was
“sent out over the state to the most suitable places, mostly
wooded districts and river farms.” He reported pheasants
could be seen “in great number along the Niobrara River and
also along the Platte.” Pheasants released on an island in the
Platte near Columbus were reported to be “doing fine.”
Although modest releases of pheasants purchased from
commercial game farms would be made, the 1911 attempt to
rear pheasants would be the state’s last until 1937. In his
1918 report to the governor, newly appointed Chief Deputy
PHOTO COURTESY OF NANCY LOFHOLM
PHOTO COURTESY OF M. E. VIERSON
From the late-1920s through the 1940s, Nebraska farms were small, diversified, dotted with idle areas and thick with pheasants.
Above, J. McGinis, F. Norman, P. Powell, H. McGinis and H. Vierson hold a string of pheasants shot near Ord in 1928.
purchased 12 eggs from an Oregon breeder, and he continued
to import new stock and raise pheasants until at least 1919,
although his records are incomplete, which brings into
question if the 1909 records were really Partridge’s first
attempt to rear pheasants, or if Anderson’s memory was
correct. Partridge sold pheasant eggs to would-be breeders
throughout Nebraska, including those in the towns of
Fairbury, Wayne, Grand Island, Hastings, Ord, South Omaha
and Columbus.
Similar private attempts to establish pheasants in the state
were apparently common. A letter to the Omaha WorldHerald in October 1913 detailed the release of 24 pairs of
pheasants by Charles Hochreiter of Ravenna in 1910. That
same year he purchased 48 eggs and raised 34 birds to
maturity, some of which he released in the area. The letter
noted that “many coveys are known to exist” around the
towns of Ravenna, Sweetwater and Rockville. Nebraska
farmers, it seems, were better situated to rear pheasants than
the state game department as they had barns and coops,
brooding hens, experience with poultry and available land.
Lacking funds and staff, the Commission could do little
more than watch from the sidelines as private breeders
attempted to establish pheasants.
“Realizing the helplessness of the ‘Bob White’ quail in
severe winters, I started a campaign during the latter part of
1907 to secure money by popular subscription from gun
clubs and individuals, for the purpose of experimenting with
the Hungarian Partridge,” wrote George L. Carter, Chief
Deputy Warden of the Game and Fish Commission in 1908.
Sufficient contributions were made for the purchase of 124
pairs at $4.50 per pair. The birds were shipped from New
York and released at 11 sites across the state from Gordon to
West Point and south to Fairbury and Minden. Although
George L. Carter received correspondence that the stock was
proliferating, little more was ever heard of the birds. That
attempt to establish Hungarian partridges, though, created an
interest at the Commission in introducing exotic game birds,
particularly pheasants. The year most often given when the
Nebraska Commission initiated pheasant releases is 1915,
but it was 1911 when the legislature appropriated a modest
sum to pay for the purchase, propagation and distribution of
pheasants in the state, and birds were raised that spring.
“Suitable buildings, cages, coops, hatching nests and netting
enclosures were erected and purchased,” wrote Henry N.
Miller, Chief Deputy Commissioner of the Nebraska Game
and Fish Commission in his Biennial Report of the Game
and Fish Commission for the two years ending December
31, 1912. “Five hundred birds consisting of several varieties
of pheasants were purchased from various game preserves at
Oak Park, Illinois; Yardley, Pennsylvania; and Jefferson City,
Missouri, but we had the same experience as other states
have had in the beginning – losing a great many of the birds
in transportation and in change of quarters, and also on
account of inexperience and knowledge of the habits and
requirements of these birds; therefore, the results are not all
that we could have hoped for.
“We find from last year’s experience in game propagation
that in order to raise the young birds, conditions must be
made as nearly as possible as they would have them in the
wild state, with plenty of room to roam, otherwise they
Jac Lofholm of Loup City posed with his bag of ringnecks in
1943. Pheasants were abundant in Sherman County.
Commissioner Geo. G. Koster recommended “that an
appropriation be made for stocking the State with
Pheasants.” Apparently, no funds were appropriated per
Koster’s request. In 1946, former Commission biologist
Levi Mohler wrote that between 1915 and 1925 “the state
brought in small shipments of pheasants and released them.
None of these early releases were large and it appears, from
what the early records show, that not more than 500 pairs of
pheasants were brought into Nebraska from the outside.”
“The State Game Commission began a limited stocking
program on pheasants in 1915, but if I remember correctly, it
wasn’t until after World War I before we received them in
Chase County,” wrote Charles and Anoma Hoffmeister in
their 1982 self-published book, Meat in the Pot. “The people
in this part of the state had elected my father to represent
them in the legislature and the game commission sent a few
pheasants for him to put out. It happened the pheasants came
MARCH 2009 • NEBRASKALAND 37
PHOTO BY JON FARRAR
By the early-1920s, the ring-necked
pheasant was proliferating in some
regions of the state, particularly in
Howard, Sherman, Greeley and Valley
counties. It is probably no coincidence
that those were some of the same
counties where private breeders made
releases in the early-1900s.
Richard McDonald from Rockville in
Sherman County wrote the Omaha
World-Herald in 1924 and complained
that pheasants had become a pest to
farmers as they followed rows of listed
corn and pulled up the sprouts.
McDonald suggested that they be
thinned out to about 20 pairs to the
quarter section “instead of the possible
300 pairs as at the present.” If McDonald
exaggerated the pheasant’s abundance,
he detailed it with specificity, as he
mentioned: “I have sat on my porch
and counted as high as 50 males at one
time, but that was a very small part of
what are here.”
In 1926, the Bureau of Game and
Fish contracted with farmers in
Sherman and Howard counties to trap
pheasants for release in other regions
of the state. Seemingly chronically
strapped for funds, half of the money
for the project came from private
individuals and sportsmen organizations.
At $1 per bird in the poor economic
times of the 1920s, it was not long
before pheasants were “coming into
Lincoln by the thousands.” During
March of that year, more than 15,000
pheasants were distributed throughout
the state. The capture of pheasants
from Sherman County averaged 27
birds per section. In the Autumn 1938
issue of Outdoor Nebraska, Frank B.
O’Connell, Chief of the Bureau of
Game and Fish, wrote that: “In 1927
and 1928 the greatest distribution of
game birds in the history of the state
The cock pheasant’s colorful plumage, as well as its size and wily nature when
was made. A total of 28,632 adult
pursued by hunters and dogs, immediately endeared it to Nebraska sportsmen.
pheasants were trapped in four counties
where they had become numerous and replanted in 77 other
during the prairie chicken season. Father had a farm at the
counties.” Other sources give the number of pheasants
edge of Imperial so he took them out and shut them in a pen
trapped and restocked in 1927 alone at 30,000.
safe from the prairie chicken gunners.
In October 1927, Nebraskans finally got their crack at
“The pheasants had the use of a hog house and were
hunting ringnecks during a three-day season in Wheeler
watered and fed until the prairie chicken season ended, a
and parts of Sherman counties. The daily bag limit and
period of about six weeks. One of the roosters never forgot
possession limit was five roosters. The following year a
the hog shed and the comfort and shelter it afforded.
10-day season in nine east-central counties (Hall, Buffalo,
Whenever it became cold, he came back to the hog house
and roosted with the hogs, and at times when the thermometer Howard, Sherman, Merrick, Valley, Greeley, Garfield and
Wheeler) was allowed, and hunters were reported to have
dipped below zero, he would sit on the hogs absorbing the
shot about 25,000 birds. In 1928 the statewide harvest was
warmth from their bodies. He made visits to the hog pen for
estimated to be twice as many, and by 1930 the pheasant
two or three years after his release.”
38 NEBRASKALAND • MARCH 2009
and reached the conclusion that the pheasant did not pull the
population in Nebraska was estimated at one million. By
healthy plant but only those which had started to wilt, and
1944, hunters were allowed an 80-day season. So abundant
that he did not pull it for the kernel, but for the cut worm or
were pheasants that one or two hens were allowed in the
wire worm which had caused the plant to die.”
daily bag from 1930 through 1941. The calculated harvest
Judging by accounts from the late-1920s, it seems the
was about one million in 1941, and two million by 1946.
ring-necked pheasant was a promiscuous consumer of farm
With large numbers of pheasants being stocked statewide,
produce. Mrs. A.H. Jones wrote in the October 6, 1930
they quickly proliferated where habitat met their needs. In
Nebraska Ornithologists’ Union Letter of Information that a
some areas they became too abundant.
Mr. Lockwood, “who lives along the Platte River north of
“The introduction of the pheasant into Nebraska by the
Hastings and makes a specialty of growing melons, lost his
state game department as a substitute for our disappearing
entire crop of early melons because of depredations by the
native game birds opens a subject of controversy which is
Ring-necked Pheasant. Lack of water, the Platte River being
likely to last for many years,” a November 11, 1928, Omaha
entirely dry at that time, is considered by Mr. Lockwood to
World-Herald editorial stated. “...his versatility in adapting
be the cause of these attacks on his melon patch. By actual
himself to new environments is just enough to bring him
count the pheasants destroyed 482 of Mr. Lockwood’s melons.
under suspicion of being a mischievous bird. The result is
In a 40-acre field he counted 17 coveys
that he has to take the blame, not only
of pheasants, which indicates the
for such mischief as he actually does do,
but for a great deal that he probably
The pheasant is a abundance of these birds in his locality.”
A bill was introduced in the 1929
doesn’t.
game bird, full of legislature to allow farmers to kill
“From the sportsman’s standpoint his
introduction is desirable,” the editorial
pep, and it will be pheasants when they threatened crops.
Not surprisingly, it was introduced by
continued. “He offers good shooting,
fun to hunt them. Representative Fred Daddow of Loup
where nothing else is available to the
City, the heart of the state’s best pheasant
hunter’s gun. He makes also an excellent They are reputed
range at that time. A similar bill was
table delicacy. It is asserted, however,
to rival a prairie
introduced in 1930 making it legal for
that he is a bully and tends to the
farmer to kill pheasants on his own
destruction of native game birds,
chicken in eating “any
lands when they were damaging or
particularly the prairie chicken, by
destroying the crops.” And a second bill
despoiling their nests.” In the pheasant’s
qualities.
the same year proposed to
defense, though, the editorial continued:
– Geo. G. Koster, introduced
“vest ownership of all non-migratory
“President Brady of the Nebraska Isaak
Chief Warden, 1922. game birds with the individual land
Walton League noted a case on his Holt
owner or tenant, instead of with the state
County ranch, where a hen grouse and a
as now.” None of the bills passed. In
hen pheasant had nests on each side of
response, the Commission issued 400 “pheasant damage”
the same fence post. They raised their flocks undisturbed by
permits to farmers in 1930, allowing them to shoot, trap or
each other or by other birds of the same species.
poison problem pheasants. The Commission’s preferred
“The greatest complaint against him,” the editorial stated,
solution was to further liberalize pheasant hunting seasons
“...comes from farmers. The question here to be determined
and increase the harvest. In 1930, 23 counties were open in
is whether his voracious appetite for worms and insects is
an attempt to pare back the number of birds. And the
enough to offset such damage as he may do by pilfering
Commission initiated research on the pheasant’s food habits
from the farmer’s grain stores, for he is granivorous as well
in 1932. By 1933, it was estimated hunters were harvesting
as carnivorous.” The editorial then recounted the story of a
about 200,000 pheasants. The Summer 1935 issue of
South Dakota farmer who saw pheasants feeding along rows
Outdoor Nebraska reported that “While the birds are not as
of his newly planted corn. “He thought he had caught them
numerous in the central part of the state as they were several
in flagrante delicto. A game warden was called in and a
number of the birds were killed. Their crops were full, not of years ago, they have greatly increased in other sections.”
The number of pheasants and their range continued to
young corn, but of cut worms.”
grow during the early years of drought and depression in the
An undocumented newspaper clipping (probably from a
1930s. During that decade, the federal government became
local paper in about 1928) from the scrapbook of W.H.
an increasingly significant player in agriculture. The
Lemburg of rural Boelus in Howard County, who raised
Cropland Adjustment Act of 1934 and the following
many species of game birds, including pheasants, that he
Agricultural Conservation Program in 1936 were designed to
released, noted that: “Within twenty years birds became so
raise prices for crops and livestock by diverting land from
plentiful in the district of the original planting that farmers
grain production and, as a side benefit, reduce soil erosion.
were complaining of damage to their crops and a few public
The weedy go-back land created under these programs suited
meetings were held and a demand made on the department
ringnecks just fine, and their numbers boomed. Drought did,
of agriculture to reduce their numbers, the popular idea
however, change where pheasants were found. The Autumn
being that they [farmers] should be allowed to shoot them.
1934 issue of Outdoor Nebraska noted that “the best hunting
The general complaint was that the pheasants were pulling
this year will be in the lowlands” as “hill lands and the corn
the newly planted corn to get the softened kernel. The
country does not have its customary supply owing to lack of
department, thru its bureau of game and fish, investigated
MARCH 2009 • NEBRASKALAND 39
moisture during the past summer.”
Drought did eventually take its toll on pheasants. In 1936
the Commission cut the season to only eight days and
reduced the daily bag from five to four birds, fearing
pheasant populations in some regions were not adequate to
ensure a large enough breeding population in the event of a
severe winter with inadequate waste grain available.
Ironically, farmers who in the late-1920s were petitioning to
kill pheasants as they were an enemy of agriculture were
now asking for reduced hunting and more pheasants to help
with grasshopper infestations.
In 1937 the Commission finally got the game farm that
40 NEBRASKALAND • MARCH 2009
PHOTO COURTESY OF R. S. BROYLES
stock and 1,266 were stocked in 11 counties, most in
east-central Nebraska. In 1939, a second game bird rearing
facility was established adjacent to Niobrara State Park
in Knox County. And in the summer of 1940, the
Commission’s third game farm was under construction at its
fish hatchery near Benkelman in Dundy County. More than
110,000 pheasants were reared at state game farms and
released from 1937 through 1946. Production at the three
hatcheries declined during World War II because of budget
cutbacks and the shortage of workers, but again blossomed
in the late-1940s and early-1950s.
Paralleling the establishment of state game farms was the
creation of 26 “cooperative pheasant-rearing
units” by the Commission in 1939, and another
25 added the following year. Under that program,
sportsmen and wildlife clubs received a brooder
house, sun porch, shelter pen, wire run, small
and large feeders and other equipment necessary
to rear pheasants, and in June received about
200 young birds reared at the state game farms.
When mature, the birds were released into the
wild. From 1939 through 1942, the heyday of
the cooperatives, sportsmen reared and released
more than 40,000 pheasants.
Mohler, who extensively studied upland
game birds in the 1940s and early 1950s, wrote
in 1946 that pheasant populations peaked in
1942 and 1943. He noted that 1942 field studies
“indicated that in good areas the population
exceeded 300 pheasants per section of land.”
He attributed the decline in pheasant numbers
between 1943 and 1946 to “intensive land use
in recent years of high prices and good rainfall
coupled with fast-moving power machinery for
working summer fallow ground” that was
“detrimental to pheasant nesting success.”
The Nebraska Game, Forestation and Parks
Commission was flush with new game biologists
following World War II, many educated under
the GI bill, and game management made a hard
turn, not just in Nebraska, but nationwide. More
than any other individual, Mel Steen, appointed
Commission director in 1956, ushered in the
principles of modern game management. While
stocking game birds where they could prosper
but did not exist was a logical management tool,
he believed Nebraska was two decades beyond
During the late-1930s, the Commission encouraged landowners
that point. Dumping ever more pheasants into
and sportsmen to purchase grain to feed pheasants and other birds.
counties where they were already established
was increasingly seen as wasted time and money. The
Chief Deputy Henry N. Miller asked the legislature to fund
emphasis on managing game birds instead turned to
in 1912. The farm was established on leased land along
U.S. Highway 81 on the southern edge of Norfolk in Madison managing habitat. Another strike against game farms was the
ever rising price of rearing pheasants, nearly doubling from
County as the Commission “deemed [it] inadvisable to
1943 to 1952, from $1.13 per bird to $2.13.
purchase a permanent site until more experience had been
Commission records are incomplete as to when the game
gained as to the type of soil that was requisite.” Seventy-five
farms at Niobrara State Park and in Dundy County were
breeding pens, seven double brooder houses, 14 brooder
closed. The last to survive was the game farm in Madison
runs, 13 show pens, four large range pens, 15 small shelters
County, which had come to be called the Norfolk Game
and 25 shipping crates were constructed. In the first year,
Farm. At a June 12, 1959 Commission meeting, Steen again
2,700 pheasants, chukar partridges and bobwhite quail were
expressed his desire to close the operation: “I don’t see
raised. Seven hundred pheasants were held over for brood
J. F. Bookwalter, Louise Broyles and Dick Broyles of North Loup in Valley County with a morning’s bag of ringnecks. Nebraska’s second
pheasant season occurred in 1928 and was open in nine counties where the birds were most abundant, including Valley County.
much sense in continuing a big and extensive pheasant
stocking program.” Steen’s desire was to create a “small but
highly modernized operation” on the Sacramento-Wilcox
Wildlife Management area in Phelps County on
Commission-owned land, adding that the Madison County
game farm was “archaic.” Some of the commissioners were
reluctant to close the Madison County game farm. Steen
responded: “I don’t see the percentage in it but it has some
public relations value.” The issue was again raised at the
March 11, 1960 Commission meeting, and a staff member
responded that designs for buildings for the new game farm
at Sacramento-Wilcox were underway. Steen stated his
opinion even more bluntly at the May 20, 1960 Commission
meeting, saying: “If you people want to take the heat, I
would like to get rid of all the game farms.” The Madison
County game farm did go away, quietly, apparently in 1962
when the lease on the land expired. Pheasants were raised at
the new game farm in subsequent years but never in the
numbers of previous years.
Pheasant numbers rebounded from their decline in the
late-1940s and early-1950s with passage of the Agricultural
Act of 1956, which created the Soil Bank Program designed
to retire cropland to raise grain prices and place the land
under permanent protective cover for five to ten years. The
Soil Bank’s patchwork of heavy cover surrounded by a mix
of diversified crop fields, agricultural land laced with broad
grassy fencerows, brushy and weedy draws and ravines,
hedgerows, clumps of plum and chokecherry thickets on
roadsides, cattail wetlands and spots of land either too small
or too rough to farm led to an immediate boom in pheasants.
In the Soil Bank’s heyday, from 1956 to 1958, Nebraska’s
pheasant numbers increased 77 percent and Nebraska
became “The Pheasant Capital of the Nation.” But the boom
was short-lived. The program was repealed in 1965.
The Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) was enacted
in 1985 and continues today. It brought a resurgence in
pheasants, but never equaling their abundance during the
Soil Bank days. The face of the Nebraska landscape had
changed dramatically in 30 years. Agriculture had become
even more intense, and CRP grasslands were isolated patches
of pheasant cover in a landscape of horizon to horizon
irrigated corn and soybean fields.
“Wherever they were introduced, it seems to be a pattern
that their populations peaked from 20 to 40 years after
introduction, and then declined,” the authors of Restoring
America’s Wildlife 1937 -1987, U.S. Dept of Interior, 1987,
wrote of the ring-necked pheasant in the United States.
“Their prime habitat requirements are early stages of plant
succession created by the farmer. They have done their best
in situations where from about half to three-fourths of the
land is cultivation.” The authors continued: “That doesn’t
describe the modern midwestern farm of today ... We are in
an era of intensive farming with sophisticated farm machinery
that mandates large fields. Chemical technology and
advances in plant breeding have favored monocultures of
corn or soybeans on most of our agricultural lands.”
Since pheasants were first introduced in Nebraska, their
numbers have cycled with the use of the land. When
someone looks back at the 21st century, it will probably be
much the same story – the abundance of this gaudy, exotic
game bird from China rose and fell with what agriculture
provided them in the way of food and cover. ■
MARCH 2009 • NEBRASKALAND 41
Cranes on the
North Platte
Photos and text by Bob Grier
“Part of the Western Alaskan-Siberian
subpopulation of lesser sandhill cranes stops each
spring near Lewellen on the North Platte River on a
journey that in some cases exceeds 5,000 miles from
their wintering to breeding grounds; and
interestingly some of these birds select two of the
world’s most inhospitable regions for their final
destinations, the Chihuahuan Desert of northern
Mexico during the winter and the arctic tundra of
northeastern Siberia during the breeding season.”
– Gary L. Krapu, research scientist at the Northern
Prairie Wildlife Research Center
arch mornings on the North Platte River
near Lewellen begin with the first bands of
barely discernable pink and red along the
eastern horizon. Above the river’s channel,
an exceptionally bright star fights to hold
its place in the night sky and a building breeze carries the
morning’s first crane calls. Thousands of shadowy sandhill
cranes standing in the shallow, willow- and tree-shrouded
river channels are beginning to stir on their nightly roosts.
The progression from night to day quickly accelerates and
scattered flocks of cranes, Canada geese, pintails and other
M
Small groups of cranes are constantly on the move between their
nightly roosts and the feeding areas along the North Platte River.
42 NEBRASKALAND • MARCH 2009
Sunset’s golden light finds a small flight of cranes on the move near Lewellen. Earlier in the day, it is possible
to see thousands of cranes noisily "kettling" into the sky on lifting air currents.
waterfowl soon begin to punctuate the now rose and orangecolored sky. Flight after flight of sandhill cranes begin
moving to their favored meadows, picked cornfields and
pastures to feed.
Most wildlife enthusiasts know of the annual spring
rendezvous of 90 percent of North America’s migrating
populations of lesser sandhill cranes that gather each March
on a relatively short section of the central Platte Valley –
considered by many to be the most spectacular concentration
of migrating birds anywhere on the planet. Few know, however,
of the smaller numbers of cranes that gather along the North
Platte above Lake McConaughy from early-March until lateApril. It is rare to see birders and other wildlife enthusiasts
stop there to view the concentrations of these wary, gray
birds with their vibrant red crowns and long legs standing in
the flat and fertile riverbottom’s farm and pasturelands.
Out here it’s often a rancher tending calving heifers or a
rural mail carrier traveling a lonely gravel road that pauses to
view and listen as another flight of cranes joins an already
feeding flock by dropping nearly vertically out of the sky
with cupped wings, outstretched legs and seemingly no room
to land. Without even knowing that the sandhill crane is the
oldest living avian species on earth or thinking of the cranes’
epic 5,000 mile journey and the perils they encounter along
the way, watching them feed and hearing their echoing calls
can bring a sense of joy, even exhilaration.
As the day progresses, the cranes begin to slow their
purposeful feeding activities – their stay on the North Platte
is intended to replenish and add to the fat reserves needed to
fuel their long journey. As midday approaches, a lull seems
to settle over the flock and the sun’s warmth begins to blur
distant birds with waves of heat rising from the moist
ground. Here and there, pairs and individual cranes begin
dancing excitedly – jumping, stretching and running short
distances with flapping wings and equally excited calls.
Soon the entire assemblage might take to the air, “kettling”
into the sky – a living funnel of birds lifting higher and higher
on the rising air currents.
The first lesser sandhills arrive on the North Platte, on
average, during the second week of March and leave about a
month later, by April 11. Lesser sandhill cranes (Grus
canadensis canadensis) are the smallest of their species,
averaging less than seven pounds and standing nearly four
feet in height. Intermediate sandhill cranes (Grus canadensis
rowani), often referred to as Canadian sandhill cranes, weigh
about 81/2 pounds with proportionately longer bills and the
largest of the species, the greater sandhill crane (Grus
canadensis tabida), can weigh more than 10 pounds.
The concentration of cranes along the central Platte Valley
each March that draws avid birders from around the globe is
composed of about 57 percent lesser sandhills, with a smaller
percentage of intermediate sandhills and an even smaller
percentage of greater sandhills. Intermediate and greater
sandhill cranes occur mostly on the eastern portion of the
central Platte, from about the U.S. Highway 34 bridge over
the Platte near Grand Island west to Shelton.
“The lesser sandhill cranes staging in the Lewellen area
are part of what we’ve designated as the West AlaskaSiberian subpopulation,” crane researcher Gary Krapu of the
Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center in Jamestown,
MARCH 2009 • NEBRASKALAND 43
"Dancing at the Mirage" – Sunlight heating the moist meadow
and pasture feeding areas by midday blurs distant cranes as
excited pairs and individual cranes perform their best moves.
North Dakota says. “The majority of this population winters
on the Chihuahuan Desert of northern Mexico and the west
Texas plains, where the flocks are usually associated with
saline lakes and salt flats.”
The Chihuahuan Desert covers parts of New Mexico,
Arizona, Texas and a large part of northern Mexico. This
approximately 140,000 square mile desert is the second
largest desert in North America.
Krapu has live-trapped and attached small transmitters to
the legs of numerous cranes to study their movements. The
transmitters weigh about 30 grams and transmit signals that
are received by satellites and then downloaded to computers
via the Internet. The telemetry tracking provides a very
accurate and detailed look at the subpopulation’s movements.
“The cranes leave the southern winter grounds beginning
as early, on average, as February 20, and by March 1 most
of the cranes are on their way north. The subpopulation’s
migratory route and their intermediate stopovers throughout
their journey are very precise and have been used for thousands
of years.”
A nonstop flight from northern Mexico or southern Texas
to the North Platte River near Lewellen – approximately 600
miles to the north – would require at least 12 hours of flying
at a 50-mph pace. The migrants usually take several days to
reach the North Platte, often arriving around sunset before
finding roosts in the shallow, braided river channels.
The trip north is fraught with dangers – cranes can
encounter freezing rain and late-winter storms at any time on
their northward migration, and spring or early summer
storms hitting their arctic breeding grounds on the Siberian
and Alaskan tundra can kill breeding adults and their chicks.
However, while inhospitable at times, the tundra is very
productive during the nesting season, and both American
and Russian wildlife biologists believe the West AlaskaSiberian subpopulation is expanding their breeding range
and their numbers.
The majority of the sandhills near Lewellen normally
leave by about April 5, arriving within three days at a second
refueling stop in western Saskatchewan after crossing South
Dakota, North Dakota and southern Saskatchewan. This
second stopover lasts about 2½ to 3 weeks before the cranes
resume their migration. From western Saskatchewan the
cranes cross northern Alberta and British Columbia before
entering the Yukon Territory and turning north to pass near
Fairbanks, Alaska.
“After reaching central Alaska, part of the subpopulation
leaves the main migration to select nesting sites in western
Alaska, including the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, while the
majority of the migrants continue their journey across the
Bering Sea and some travel as far as 1,500 miles into
northeastern Siberia where they breed and nest, usually on
major river deltas entering the Arctic Ocean,” said Krapu.
Unlike the overcrowding of snow geese on their North
American arctic breeding and nesting grounds that threatens
and destroys the fragile tundra (see the snow geese story
beginning on page 28), sandhill crane pairs select and defend
large nesting areas. Nest densities for lesser sandhill cranes
Ground blizzards and late winter storms are a constant threat during the sandhill cranes’ migration north.
44 NEBRASKALAND • MARCH 2009
Cranes return to their nightly roosts on the North Platte’s wide and shallow channels well after sundown on warm spring evenings.
on the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta in Alaska, for example, are
estimated to be less than one nest per square mile.
Snow and ice on the arctic breeding grounds can delay the
cranes’ arrival and the birds will often stage in sub-arctic
regions until the breeding grounds open.
Lesser sandhills usually arrive on their breeding and nesting
grounds in mid-May, and their stay fits tightly within the
brief arctic summer. Incubation begins with the laying of the
first egg, and both adults take turns incubating the one- to
two-egg clutch. Incubation averages about 31 to 33 days.
Possibly as an adaptation to the shortened arctic breeding
and nesting season and possibly aided in their feeding activities
by the nearly 24 hours of daylight, lesser sandhill chicks
fledge at about two months of age, compared to the nearly
three months needed for greater sandhill crane chicks.
Less than three months after their arrival, the sandhills are
ready to begin the migration back to their wintering grounds.
During the fall migration, the cranes follow much the same
course as in spring until reaching their fall staging areas in
western Saskatchewan, where they stop for about three
weeks. Departing from Saskatchewan in mid-October, the
cranes migrate to their wintering grounds in less than a
week. Most migrate across eastern and central Montana,
through eastern Wyoming, Colorado and into New Mexico,
where the birds heading to the Texas plains split from the
migrants continuing to Mexico.
The sandhill cranes that stop near Lewellen each spring
offer excellent viewing opportunities, particularly for people
out west who don’t want to travel quite as far to see these
magnificent birds and those who like a little more solitude as
they enjoy nature. Both viewer and crane safety are critical
and NEBRASKAland Magazine’s Wildlife Viewing Guide
(January-February 1997) offers detailed recommendations on
approaching and viewing wildlife.
Unlike the crane-viewing facilities, blinds and highway
and county road turnouts available along the central Platte,
the Lewellen region’s crane viewing infrastructure is primitive
and requires constant attention. Viewers should pull their
vehicles well off highway and county road surfaces whenever
possible while also avoiding wet and soft road shoulders.
The best crane-viewing locations are found from the Clear
Creek Wildlife Management Area five miles east of
Lewellen on Nebraska Highway 92 to the Garden County
roads west of Lewellen. At times, feeding flocks of cranes
may be found as far west as the Oshkosh area.
An overall view of the North Platte valley is offered at the
Ash Hollow State Historical Park’s visitor center, located two
miles east of Lewellen on U.S. Highway 26. A small parking
area at the south end of the county road bridge directly south
of Lewellen offers a panoramic view of the North Platte.
At times, large concentrations of cranes are visible on
the outskirts of Lewellen and are often observed “kettling”
in the sky directly over the small community, as well as
transiting at low altitudes between their nightly roosts and
day-time feeding areas.
The sandhill crane’s pause along the North Platte in March
is not nearly as well-known as the central Platte’s gathering,
but it is important to know that the rewards for birders and
others that hope to spend time with this most ancient of living
bird species can be found in both places each spring.
Wherever you find them, enjoy the spectacle that is crane
season in Nebraska. ■
MARCH 2009 • NEBRASKALAND 45
Carrion Beetles in the Loess Canyons
One of the unique objectives of this effort is to protect and increase the population
of an endangered species present in this landscape, the American burying beetle.
High populations imply area is again supporting diverse wildlife populations.
By T. J. Walker, District Manager, Wildlife Division – Partners Section
effort is to protect and
he Loess
increase the population of
Canyons
an endangered species
area of
present in this landscape,
southeast
the American burying
Lincoln
beetle. Due to requirements
County, northern
of the federal funding
Frontier County
sources contributing to this
and southwest
T. J. Walker
project, NGPC and Quail
Dawson County
is a very unique landscape in Nebraska. Forever personnel are
required to monitor the
This large area is part of a former
population of this species.
elevated plain that has been eroded
study trap similar to the one shown here contained
Therefore, annual trapping A
over time and is now known for its
837 carrion beetles from a single night of trapping.
efforts for the American
deep and branching canyons. The area
were captured, with 129 of those being
burying beetle were initiated in 2007
is highly variable in vegetation, with
caught in 2008. The top two traps for
mixed-grass prairie and cedar woodland and continued in 2008.
this species to date, producing half of
The American burying beetle is a
dominating, but there are also stands
member of a group of insects known as the total captures in 2008, were located
of deciduous trees such as green ash,
American elm, boxelder, hackberry and carrion beetles, named for their feeding within an area that burned during the
requirements of carrion (dead animals). August 2002 Gothenburg wildfire.
cottonwood.
Trapping these insects is not difficult or This is a very positive finding for our
The Loess Canyons area was
current management efforts because
expensive when compared to trapping
designated as a “Biologically Unique
it suggests that fire is beneficial for
other wildlife – all that is required is a
Landscape” in the Nebraska Natural
this endangered beetle species. While
bucket buried in the ground, a dead
Legacy Project, our statewide
the wildfire may have killed some
animal (usually a rat purchased from a
comprehensive wildlife conservation
American burying beetles, it also greatly
scientific supply house), some latex
plan, and has since become one of a
improved the habitat for a variety of
gloves and a little personal grit.
number of “flagship” project areas.
While two years of monitoring is not wildlife that eventually became food
Many partnering agencies, including
for the beetle.
sufficient to assess the total population
the Nebraska Game and Parks
It is also evident from the trapping
of the American burying beetle in the
Commission (NGPC), Natural
results that more American burying
Loess Canyons, biologists are finding
Resources Conservation Service,
beetles are being captured in areas with
some interesting results. The trapping
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Quail
low to moderate cedar density than in
efforts in 2007 produced fairly low
Forever, the Loess Canyons Rangeland
capture rates for the endangered beetle, areas with high cedar density. This is
Alliance and many private landowners
also a very positive result, as it supports
primarily due to cool
have been involved in
the removal of cedar trees, the primary
nighttime temperatures
efforts to reduce
management activity being implemented
during the time the
coverage of cedar
on this landscape. The combined tools
trapping was going on.
trees, improve
of fire, mechanical cedar removal and
American burying
grazing management,
improved grazing management have
beetles are nocturnal
return fire to the
already shown great benefits in
and are only active
landscape through prescribed
improving the range quality on
when
temperatures
burns and improve
The Loess Canyons comprise more
numerous project sites. We are seeing
surpass
60
degrees.
the overall health of
than 400 square miles of tableland.
Trapping conditions more native, warm-season grasses and
the rangeland. As a
higher abundance of annual weeds and
result, thousands of acres of cedar trees in 2008 were perfect, including warm
native wildflowers. We are also seeing
nighttime temperatures with elevated
have been removed, native grasses,
new growth of plum, sumac, currant,
humidity levels – beetles also do not
wildflowers, shrubs and trees are
snowberry and other shrubs, along with
like dry weather and become relatively
increasing and landowners are seeing
saplings of green ash, American elm
inactive under such conditions.
benefits in both livestock production
and other trees where, as recently as
Collectively during the two years of
and wildlife population increases.
trapping, 166 American burying beetles the fall of 2007, cedar trees completely
One of the unique objectives of this
T
PHOTO BY T. J. WALKER
46 NEBRASKALAND • MARCH 2009
dominated the landscape.
These changes on the landscape will
improve the area for beef production as
well as for game species, including
mule deer, wild turkey, northern
bobwhite and elk as well as nongame
species, including several that are listed
as at-risk in the Nebraska Natural
Legacy Plan. A more diverse landscape
means more diverse and abundant
wildlife, which will lead eventually to
higher populations of American
burying beetles.
Along with the American burying
beetle, 12 other species of carrion
beetles were captured, identified and
counted during these monitoring
efforts. More than 30,000 carrion beetles
have been identified and counted to
date, and while the numbers captured
vary widely per trap and trapping
period, it has not been uncommon to
have more than 600 carrion beetles in
one trap in a 24-hour trapping period.
The highest count resulted in 837 carrion
beetles in a single trap.
The Loess Canyons obviously have a
very high carrion beetle population,
which implies that the landscape is
again supporting high and diverse
populations of wildlife. ■
For more on burying beetles, see the
March 2005 issue of NEBRASKAland.
MARCH 2009 • NEBRASKALAND 47
ATTRACTIONS/EVENTS
GOT PRAIRIE? We do! Prairie Plains Resource Institute
is Nebraska born and dedicated to the people and
landscape of the Great Plains. Since 1980 we’ve been
planting prairies, getting kids outside and spending time
with people on the land. For beautiful photos, calendar
of events or to become a member, visit
www.prairieplains.org or call (402) 694-5535.
WILDERNESS SURVIVAL CLASS - Start a fire with
the bow-drill method, build a survival shelter,
be introduced to primitive traps, cordage, flint
knapping, edible and medicinal plants, water
location and purification, and much more! Go to
www.greatplainstracker.com.
his Grand, Upland and Master titles. Seventy pounds of
muscle, exceptional marker and blind runner Dozer
is available for breeding to approved females. Natural
breeding requires a brucellosis test on females. Chilled
semen available. Stud Fee $600. Contact owner Tom
Phillips at (785) 635-5776 or trainer/handler - Chris
Jobman at (308) 249-0707, www.flatlanderkennels.com.
CANOE - KAYAK - TUBE RENTALS on the
beautiful Niobrara River with Dryland Aquatics at
Sparks, Nebraska. Your Niobrara River Specialist. (800)
337-3119. www.drylandaquatics.com, info@drylandaquatics.com.
PREMIER GUNDOGS TRAINING KENNEL: Gundog
training for all pointing breeds and hunting retrievers.
GSP and Labrador retriever puppies and started dogs with
30-month hip and eye guarantees. References gladly
given. Dale and Kris Taylor (402) 787-2048,
www.premiergundogs.com.
GUNS – Browning, Benelli, Winchester, Ruger, etc. 1700
guns, buy-sell-trade (402) 729-6112, Bedlan’s, Fairbury,
NE 68352. www.bedlans.com.
GREAT NEBRASKA
MUSHROOM
HUNT:
Saturday April 25th & Sunday April 26. Contests - Food
- Music. For more information, telephone (850) 9161616 or visit www.NebraskaTheGoodLife.com.
FLATLANDER KENNELS INC. Bayard, NE
Full-time retriever training facility for the serious hunter
or AKC and HRC hunt tester. Trainer of Nebraska's first
and only GRHRCH's! Super Retriever Series competitor
and a member of Avery's Team Waterdog. Training
available for all levels of hunt tests and gundogs. Chris
Jobman: (308) 249-0707, www.flatlanderkennels.com.
DOGS
FISH/FISHING
PLUM CREEK KENNEL. German shorthairs, stud
service, puppies and started dogs. Training for all pointing breeds. Specialize in training the handler as well as
the dog. Wayne Clark, Percival, Iowa (near Omaha) (712)
529-4238, clarks1@iowatelecom.net.
FISH FOR SALE. Catfish, largemouth bass, smallmouth
bass, perch, crappie, bluegill, walleye, rainbow trout,
grass carp, minnows. Pleasant Valley Fish Farm, 27851
U.S. Highway 83, McCook, NE 69001. (308) 345-6599.
DUCKDAWG RETRIEVERS - Raising exceptional
hunting yellow and black Labradors. Puppies raised in
our home. 30 month health guarantee. Stud service:
GRHRCH UH DuckDawg's Eba Roll The Dice and
GRHRCH UH McMac Magic Eyes A'Smilin MH - the
first Grand Hunting Retriever Champions in Nebraska.
www.duckdawg.com Ron Green DVM and Libby
Milroy, North Platte NE (308) 534-3659.
AT STUD: GRHRCH UH Platte's TNT Duckdawg Dozer
MH. First yellow Labrador in the state of Kansas to earn
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48 NEBRASKALAND • MARCH 2009
NEBRASKA LAKE MANAGEMENT. Biological lake
surveys, fish stocking, rough fish control, lake aeration,
algae control, shorewall construction. Rob Hofpar,
Aquatic Biologist, licensed, insured and qualified. (402)
784-6005 Valparaiso - 1(888) 850-2460.
FOOD/GIFTS/HOME
HOMEBREWING/BEER AND WINEMAKING.
Fermenter’s Supply, 8410 K Plaza, Suite #10, Omaha, NE
68127. Phone orders only, (888) 655-2739. Advice line
(402) 593-9171. www.fermenterssupply.com.
CABIN/BUILDING/HOME Design and Construction.
Full-line building materials. Schreier’s Lumber Company
- Verdigre, NE. “Over 100 years experience”
schrlmbr@gpcom.net (402) 668-2624.
GUIDES/OUTFITTERS
OUTDOOR EQUIPMENT
IS PERFORMANCE IMPORTANT? For the finest
canoes and accessories look to Great Plains Canoe Co.,
205 Main, Springfield, NE 68059. Phone (402) 253-2000.
PHOTOGRAPHY
WILDLIFE PHOTOGRAPHIC PRINTS. Matted, framed
and signed. Go to inplainssight.homestead.com,
hathfotofreak@hotmail.com, (402) 848-2358. “The more
you buy, the quicker my wife can retire!”
VACATIONS/RESORTS
FOR FISHING AND HUNTING accommodations.
Guided pheasant hunts. Jefco Inn, South Cornell St.,
Gordon, NE 69343 (308) 282-2935.
THE OLDE MAIN STREET INN. A historic bed and
breakfast listed in the National Register of Historic
Places. Beautiful dining room with fireplace. Featuring
prime rib, buffalo, seafood, homemade soups, chilis and
desserts. 115 Main Street, Chadron NE 69337 (308) 4323380. www.chadron.com/oldemain.
DIAMOND B TROUT RESORT, Orchard, Nebraska.
Lodge, cabins, spring-fed lakes, playground equipment,
paddleboats. Great for families, groups, hunters. Book
your cabin now! Call for brochure (800) 974-3002.
www.diamondbtroutresort.com.
MILL IRON V LODGING has modern cabins for your
vacation pleasure. We are located near Verdigre, NE
in turkey country. Each cabin offers privacy, view and a
birdwatcher’s paradise. Stay with us for a COUNTRY
EXPERIENCE. (402) 668-7488. www.milliron-vlodging.com, jpeinrem@gpcom.net.
BIG BLUE RANCH & LODGE - Enjoy fishing, hunting,
hiking, birdwatching and ranch adventures on 2000+ acre
cattle ranch in southeastern Nebraska. Beautiful log
cabin, with fireplaces, kitchens & big covered porches,
overlooks 20-acre lake. www.bigblueranch.com (402)
730-3643.
ASPINWALL LODGING: Rural farmhouse located near
Nemaha among the rolling hills of southeastern
Nebraska. Three bedrooms, full kitchen, washer & dryer,
TV. Situated close to Indian Cave State Park, historic
Brownville,
Game
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Parks
wildlife
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much more. Open all year, accepting reservations,
brochure available. (402) 883-2788.
COME ENJOY ALL the great outdoors has to offer under
starry skies at NEBRASKA’S PREMIER FISHERY,
Merritt Reservoir, in the heart of the scenic sandhills.
Cabins, RV hookups, fuel, groceries, ice, bait, tackle,
rentals, restaurant & lounge and more. (402) 376-3437
www.merritttradingpost.com.
HIGH PLAINS HOMESTEAD, Home of the Drifter
Cookshack & Bunkhouse – The Old-West cow-town
slowly comes alive on the windswept prairie of northwest
Nebraska. Rejuvenate your spirit through a wide variety
of activities amongst the ruggedness and beauty that is
only limited by your imagination. Popular activities
include; family day outings, bunkhouse cabin overnight
stays, hunting, birding, stargazing, fossil hunting and the
trails that are available for mountain biking & horseback
riding. Great cowboy cookin' at the Cookshack. Visit
www.highplainshomestead.com or call: (888) 365-2592
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@nebraska.gov. Ads are posted online at
NebraskalandMagazine.com at no additional charge.
This small Boyd County lake is a gem in the Niobrara River breaks.
By Jon Farrar
endrites. That was the word
that popped into my mind
when I Google Earthed Hull
Lake southwest of Butte in
Boyd County and saw
intricate, fringe-edged fingers radiating
out from a thicker trunk. I knew it was
precisely the right word for the image
on my computer screen, a latent memory
from an animal behavior or geology
course I’d taken more than 40 years
ago. Dendrites (from Greek meaning
“tree”) are the branched projections of
a neuron that conduct electrochemical
stimulation within the cells of our bodies.
In geology, dendrites are the frost-like
patterns found in mineral crystals. But
the Google Earth image was neither of
those, rather it was a wooded drainage
feeding into the Niobrara River. On the
trunk of that drainage were the
impounded waters of Hull Lake
Wildlife Management Area (WMA).
The first view of Hull Lake from
ground level is nearly as surprising.
Visitors jog back and forth on county
roads through a gently rolling
countryside of cornfields as they drive
south from State Highway 12. Big
bales of hay line the roadsides in latesummer. Cattle gather
under the shade of lines of
trees in browning pastures.
The county road ends with
a view across a broad
valley to the south,
through which the
Niobrara River courses.
The last turn is onto a
winding, single-lane,
graveled road. At the
WMA’s entrance are
ponderosa pines, eastern red cedars
and a lone windmill that looks as if its
galvanized blades that once captured
the wind and put it to use have not
turned for many years. The road drops
abruptly into a narrow canyon and the
clear, blue waters of Hull Lake lie ahead.
Broadleaf arrowhead, wild bergamot
and Joe-Pye weed line the shoreline
along the dam; trees creep down the
D
PHOTOS BY JON FARRAR
WILDERNESS KENNELS. Since 1968 – over 60 years
combined experience. Gun dog training, all sporting
breeds – retrievers, flushing and pointing. All dogs
worked on pen-raised birds and wild game. Obedience
training includes heel, sit, stay, down and come when
called. Pups, started dogs and fully trained dogs for sale.
Hunting dogs trained by hunters. Henry Sader, Roca, NE
(402) 423-4212. www.wildernesskennels.com.
GUNS/SHOOTING/ARCHERY
Hull Lake
ABOVE: Woodlands surround the upper end of the lake while cattails and swamp milkweed
blanket the dam face. BELOW LEFT: A house wren leaves its tree hole nest to feed.
hills to the lake where it narrows. It is a
tranquil, and unexpected, scene on the
hardland of north-central Nebraska
farm country.
Construction of the earthen dam that
created Hull Lake began late in 1949.
A 1950 Outdoor Nebraska article stated
the completed dam was 500 feet long,
38 feet high, 180 feet wide
at the bottom, and the
lake’s water was 32 feet
deep off the face of the
dam. Hull Lake WMA is
something of an anomaly
as a state recreation area,
as the land is not owned
by the Commission. The
right to create the lake and
manage the WMA’s six
acres of land and water
was gained as an easement from
landowners Raymond and Opal
O’Haney. Even though small, the lake
was welcomed by fishermen in this
lake-poor region of the state. Fed by
springs, the water quality is good and
the lake deep enough to safeguard
against winterkills.
Hull Lake is stocked with bluegills,
channel catfish, largemouth bass and
crappie. Because dense woodlands
surround most of the lake, the best
fishing access is by using a small boat
or a belly boat. Electric motors are
allowed, as is primitive camping.
Doves and rabbits are listed as potential
game animals at Hull Lake, but the
land area is really too small to justify
it. Birdwatchers can expect to
encounter the same mix of eastern and
western species for which the central
Niobrara River is known. Hunters and
birders may also want to visit nearby
Parshall Bridge WMA, located on the
north side of the Niobrara River 3½
miles south of Butte on the east side of
State Highway 11. Like Hull Lake
WMA, it is situated in rugged, wooded
canyon breaks and covers more than
226 acres. ■
★
Hull Lake is ½ mile west, 2 miles south,
1 mile west and 1¼ miles south of Butte
in Boyd County.
MARCH 2009 • NEBRASKALAND 49
▲
This is my favorite photograph of my grandfather, Fred Loeffler, who passed
away in 1988 in Fremont. Writing on the photo identifies the animal as a lynx, but
could be a bobcat, as lynx are rare in Nebraska. He did not shoot the animal,
only posed with it, and others probably did as well. The photo was taken in 1916
at Lindsay in Platte County when my grandfather was 17 years old.
– Gary Ebert, Eagle, Nebraska
▲
This picture is of two
Canada geese shot
near Stuart by my dad,
Frank A. Greger Jr.,
around 1928 when he
was 12 years old.
Dad said he heard
hunters shooting down
at the pond and saw the
geese take off. The
geese acted tired and
landed on the east
meadow. So he grabbed
his shotgun and jumped
on his pony Black
Beauty and rode
bareback out to where
the geese were. He got
real close, slid off his pony and shot two geese.
I’m sure Dad was pretty proud and I’m sure his mother
was proud of him too! Dad said his mom always wanted
him to go hunting and bring home some wild game to cook.
Dad will be 93 years old on March 27, 2009, and still
hunts geese and deer.
– Dan Greger, Stuart, Nebraska
▲
This picture
was taken in
July 1969 in
North Platte
after a good
walleye fishing
trip to Lake
McConaughy.
Pictured (left
to right) are:
Mike Ponte
(myself); my
step-dad, Ray
Christiansen;
my cousin, Ray
Detlefsen; and Dean Jamieson – all from North Platte at
that time.
We always enjoyed getting together for fishing trips to the
lake and the great meals that followed.
– Mike Ponte, Grand Island, Nebraska
▲
Jim and Ron Beran after a hunt
with their grandfather, Tony
Guzinski, near Ashton in 1952
when Jim was seven and Ron
was five years old.
– Cheron ‘Ron’ Beran,
Omaha, Nebraska
▲
Rabbits were
plentiful in the
1930s. Hunting
jacks and cottontails
was great sport but
also a significant
source of nutrition.
We had many
meals of rabbit,
squab or squirrel.
In this photo, my
father Dan Seibold
(left) is shown
with his father’s
12-gauge, doublebarrel shotgun,
which his grandson
says has Damascus
and Henry on the
barrel.
On the right is his
cousin, George
Seibold, holding an
unknown singlebarrel shotgun.
– Danny B. Seibold,
Papillion, Nebraska
Send contributions to: Portraits from the Past, NEBRASKAland Magazine, P.O. Box 30370, Lincoln, NE 68503-0370. Photos should show
people enjoying Nebraska outdoor activities, such as camping, boating, hunting or fishing, and must have been taken before 1970. We will
give priority to unusual photos or activities. When possible, please include a story about the photograph and identify the people, places and
approximate date it was taken. Photos will be returned.
50 NEBRASKALAND • MARCH 2009
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