Corn and Cranes: 150 years of change in the Platte River Valley

Nebraska’s landscapes have changed throughout history. Arguably, the immigration of European and eastern Americans in the 1800s marked the start of the period of the most dramatic change to the Platte River Valley. Agricultural statistics have been recorded since 1866 and provide insights into changes in land use in this critical area of the Great Plains. Of course, land use affects ecosystem dynamics including trends in bird populations. Irrigation, mechanization, export demand, and the rise of biofuels have affected the type of crops planted and harvested in the Platte River Valley. Corn has been king in Nebraska since the early days of agriculture, and I will use historic photos to visualize changes to landscapes over 150 years. Sandhill Cranes may have benefited from the availability of corn as their own type of biofuel while many other species of birds have suffered as grasslands and wetlands disappeared. Join speaker, Dr. Larkin Powell, and he explores present-day challenges that modern agriculture poses to cranes and other migratory birds and innovative solutions that may allow us to use our landscapes to produce food while protecting wildlife in this hour-long presentation.  

Learn about the Speaker: 

Larkin Powell serves as the Director for the School of Natural Resources at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL). For two decades, he taught undergraduate and graduate courses on wildlife management and conducted research on landscape dynamics, animal demography and movements, and decisions made by private landowners in the Great Plains and throughout the world. The school has 81 faculty working across fields of climate, water/soils, and biodiversity in the working landscapes of Nebraska and beyond.