(upbeat music) -[Carlee] Up next, saving Nebraska's rare cool water streams.

Field notes with Thad Huenemann and a visit with bird nerd Jason St.

Sauver.

I'm Carlee Moates.

Welcome to Conservation Works.

(gentle music) (water babbling) (gentle music) (nature sounds) (bright music) -[Narrator] Nebraska has a precious resource connecting landscapes and communities.

These are the state's cool water streams, unique habitats vital to wildlife and water quality.

(bright music) -[Brett] Cool water streams are streams that maintain a fairly constant temperature year round, and they're largely driven by groundwater springs that provide a lot of unique habitats for species of plants and fisheries throughout the north, central and western part of the state.

(bright music) And they typically have really high water quality as well.

(bright music) -[Thad] It's essentially based on the stream's temperature range, and in most cases, the cool water stays anywhere from 40 degrees up to upper side is sometimes in the 70s, but not much more than that.

Compared to warm water streams can almost get up to the regular air temperature.

(bright music) -[Brett] So ecosystems and streams as a whole are really important for maintaining biodiversity.

So healthy streams, healthy biodiversity is really important.

(bright music) And so any opportunity that you can to maintain, protect and restore those ecosystems is really vital for not just the fish and wildlife and recreation, but also the landowners that depend on the landscape.

And even beyond that, you know, the cities and municipalities rely on the water quality, the water quantity.

So again, any opportunity to protect that is pretty critical.

(bright music) -[Narrator] Despite their vital importance, these resilient systems face ongoing challenges.

Over time, the balance of these streams can be disrupted.

(bright music) -[Thad] Us as humans have had impacts on how these systems work with how water is used across landscapes kind of has altered these systems from their normal state.

Sometimes it takes a little bit of tinkering to try to find ways to get it more in balance.

(bright music) -[Brett] The centerpiece of it all is making sure that you have a floodplain to dissipate that high energy when the water rises.

So it goes across the landscape to maintain those habitats, but also having good clean water, good stream temperatures.

So when one of those things is out of balance, sometimes, you know, it needs to be some intervention.

(bright music) -[Thad] If you're seeing a lot of exposed soil, dirt, sand where there's not much vegetation.

Those are sometimes signs that it's a vulnerable state for that bank, and under certain conditions, if the water level would rise, it would increase the risk of erosion in those areas.

We look at the critters that live in that area.

If we assess the stream and we don't see anything that should be there, that's usually a reason for concern.

(bright music) -[Narrator] Once concerns are identified, a variety of enhancement solutions are implemented to improve the stream's natural processes.

(bright music) -[Brett] Things that we do to restore the stream.

Increasing the curviness of the stream.

Maintaining good water quality.

Maintaining that floodplain connectivity.

Vegetation enhancements.

In some cases, large woody debris is pretty critical for maintaining the habitats as well.

-[Thad] If we recognize the system is lacking woody debris, sometimes a simple tool is to just insert tree branches, things that have fallen in.

Those are good kind of buffet lines for a lot of the fish species, the bug species.

Even for vegetation to be able to grow.

(bright music) Some of the other features we've tried to do is in areas where we recognize riffle sections of a stream, it's usually the higher points and the shallowest parts of the stream or river, and it's usually a little bit faster flowing, which means we have a little bit larger gravel that sits in those areas.

If we recognize that stream doesn't have any of those features in there, that's an easy fix to we dump some of those cobble features in specific areas along the stream to promote any fish species that want to use this as spawning habitat.

(bright music) -[Narrator] The success of stream enhancement goes beyond the fish.

These renovations create better water quality and provide economic value for the people who rely on the landscape.

(bright music) -[Brett] Any response you see from a fish is pretty cool, right?

But beyond that, you know, just seeing how landowners and partnerships get people get excited about this type of stuff, seeing the improvements in water quality, that's such a big important factor throughout the state.

(bright music) -[Thad] There's a couple different ways that we can measure these benefits.

Sometimes we set objectives or goals.

If we're seeing fish grow to a larger size, that's a benefit because that's a sign that they're getting enough food to survive.

We build in features that maybe have more access for fishing opportunities, angling opportunities.

We're finding connections for people to utilize these natural resources and make those connections that are more fitting to what they were interested in or hoping to get out of it.

(bright music) -[Narrator] These stream projects enhance the health of the entire landscape through constant collaboration and communication.

(bright music) -[Brett] In the case of the water streams, it's truly a story about connections.

And, you know, you're working with producers at state federal agencies, nonprofit organizations.

Like it's all part of the bigger puzzle.

(bright music) You can't really do one without the other.

And so we all sort of rely on one another to make these types of projects successful and to maintain these habitats for the long term.

(bright music) Part of our role is just to be the communicator in what's working, what's not working, and then be able to learn through that process with a lot of those same people.

(bright music) -[Thad] Collaboration with partners or other community folks is really critical in this process.

We want to be able to interact with folks because that's sometimes the best opportunity to get new ideas.

There's opportunities in some of the public access areas that we've created through game and parks, or through some of our partners with the NRDs.

Sometimes we do outdoor education.

We bring in students from schools to come do classroom days and get their feet wet in the streams.

That's always a firsthand experience and pretty memorable.

(bright music) -[Brett] There's a lot of volunteer opportunities for people that want to kind of see firsthand how this stuff works.

Getting involved with some of the nonprofit organizations, there's a lot of really good people.

A lot of really good organizations.

(bright music) -[Thad] Look to some of your local community organizations that work with water systems or manage the natural resources and see what projects they've got going on.

As simple as creating a stream clean-up day or something like that is a real simple way to help your community and beautify the area and landscape.

(bright music) -[Narrator] Revitalizing Nebraska's cool water streams is made possible by dozens of passionate biologists, contractors, and landowners.

(bright music) -[Brett] Getting the opportunity to sit down with people, even people within our agency, and learning some of that institutional knowledge that they've learned through successes and failures with these types of projects.

Sitting down with landowners to hear about the generational aspects of what they find valuable in this, whether it's just having their grandkids play in the stream to ranching, it's really a pretty beautiful story.

(bright music) -[Thad] Something that really pushes me.

You can consider my personality.

I would be kind of identified as a fixer.

I like to fix things.

Doing these fixes is creating opportunities, showing opportunities where we can build success and make an improvement to a system that was maybe in disarray or disrepair.

Kind of motivates me and be like, okay, we can make a difference.

And having those little differences build up and build kind of a more fulfilling enjoyment in the work that I do.

And if I ever have an opportunity to really try to fish and actually catch a trout in a stream that I worked on, that's an extra added bonus.

(bright music) (no audio) - Hi, I'm Carlee Moates.

Welcome to Conservation Works, a series exploring the creative and inspiring ways Nebraskans are helping people, wildlife and the land thrive together.

In the studio with me is Thad Huenemann.

Rivers and streams program manager for Nebraska Game and Parks.

Nebraska's cool water streams support diverse aquatic habitats and an equally wide variety of wildlife.

Yet many face growing pressures from changing landscapes.

Thad has joined me to discuss how restoration projects, partnerships and practical solutions are helping these rare waterways remain healthy for generations.

Thanks for being here today, Thad.

- Glad to be here.

- So how long have you had this role as the manager?

- My first year on board was 2019, and for many Nebraskans, if you remember, that was kind of an exceptional year with a lot of water in the state having to deal with a lot of our rivers and streams and flood conditions for most of the year.

And then now, you know, seeing these patterns of drier periods.

So dealing kind of with the areas with drought conditions.

- So what's unique about these cool water streams?

-[Thad] Well, a couple of things that are kind of we find interesting and unique about some of these streams is in Nebraska.

It's different than some of the other states with mountain streams, where you have a lot of the snowmelt that works through the valleys of the systems.

Our streams are more groundwater fed.

So it's the groundwater that gets up to the water level and is kind of followed into these channels And at different parts of the state, maintain their cool water all year long.

And so it's unique opportunities.

It's not always based on rain events or high fluctuations with snow melt or rain, but it's driven a lot by just where the groundwater levels are in some of these areas, landscapes across Nebraska.

- Is that groundwater coming from our aquifer, then, the Ogallala Aquifer?

-[Thad] Most of them, yeah.

There's a variety of different aquifers in Nebraska.

The most popular is the Ogallala one.

Um, it reaches some of the canyons and areas of parts of the state is the Ogallala.

There's a few others out in the Panhandle part that kind of helps supply the cool water conditions for some of those streams out farther west.

So yeah.

-[Carlee] And when it's spring fed water, that doesn't freeze.

Is that right?

So it remains open water for species as well.

- Yeah.

And so what's unique about it?

You could go outside in January and February when it's, you know, -20 degrees and the water is still flowing because the water is maintained at like 40 to 50 degrees.

And so yeah, if you're looking for fishing spots, you don't want to go ice fishing and fight through ice conditions.

You can still find some of those streams to be flowing and even some of the coldest parts of the year.

- Wow.

So what kind of wildlife is relying on these streams?

- Uh, a variety of things.

We focus a lot on our fish species that occupy those areas.

Um, there's, they're unique species in the sense that we kind of categorize some of them as at risk species.

And so we have some small, really small minnow shiner size day species that occupy these cool waters.

And then we've, over the years and decades previously have stocked a lot of our trout species and created recreational opportunities, angling opportunities for those that want to fish for sport fish in some of these cool water streams.

And so a lot of these areas do pretty well for some of our trout species, too.

- I've had the opportunity to be on some of those fish monitoring efforts with game and parks.

Can you just walk through what that looks like?

It seems like it's a lot of hands on deck to see what's in these streams.

-Yes.

So there's, there's a couple different ways that we use.

One of our most effective ways is what we call electrofishing.

And so we bring in gear that actually produces energy and electro waves in the stream.

And what it does is it allows us to be successful at capturing fish by stunning the fish temporarily in the water.

And because those guys are, they swim fast and they can get kind of avoid our dip nets pretty quickly.

And so one way for us is to go in and, and create these electrical waves that kind of temporarily freezes them for a little bit and gives us a fighting chance to catch them.

And it gives us an opportunity to see what species are out there.

- Something I find notable about these cool water streams is the trout in the southeast part of the state I. So I grew up fishing, but it was always catfish in cow ponds, pretty much.

And the idea of fishing for trout was always in the mountain streams.

But we have that in Nebraska, too.

You don't have to go out of the state to find that opportunity as well.

- Yeah, yeah.

They, you know, it's a unique opportunity.

People still associate that in the mountains.

And we can call it, you know, the lighter mountains in the western part of Nebraska as opportunities for anglers that don't want to just fish in the ponds or areas that we've stocked in some of the lakes in the early spring or fall season and want that kind of more close to nature fly fishing opportunity to catch a fish that's trying to move upstream and some of the riffle areas.

- Mhm.

Um, when you are restoring these cool water streams, what we learned from the video is that the meanders are really important.

Why does why does that matter?

To keep that curvature on the landscape in those streams?

- Sure.

We oftentimes try to overengineer a system and we worry about getting water off certain lands.

And the challenge is when you.

You create straight conditions in a stream is you're just accelerating the flow.

And what that does is create further damage downstream.

And so the idea is, is getting back to, if you were to look historically back to these systems before we kind of have altered them, they had a lot of snake like bends back and forth.

And what that does is just it creates a longer path for that water to travel, and it slows it down.

It also slows down the energy.

So it's not as detrimental to the stream banks in those areas.

And it's not pushing as much sediment as fast downstream.

And so when we look at habitats available, we look at water depth in the system, the sediment that settles on the bottom of it, and then the velocity all create different conditions along that stream path.

And fish like to kind of pick and choose those areas as they navigate through those conditions.

It's based on, you know, the situation at hand on where the project area is taking place.

Mother nature wants that stream to go one way, and it's going to move on an annual basis side to side.

Us building a little bit of that buffer allows that stream or river to move side to side without much impact.

And so kind of coming to some compromise with the local partner groups and understanding, like we got to give it some room to wiggle so that when you are dealt with like heavy, high precipitation, big rain events and that water just rises quickly, it doesn't do as much damage in a condition like that versus a straight channel or water slide, so to speak, down, down the channel so.

- When you're reaching a collaboration with a landowner or other folks that you're working with, how does that work?

Do they come to you with a vision for their land, or do you find these opportunities and then reach out to people that are there.

- A mix of both.

In some cases, we've had some landowners work with some of our local staff in a certain part of the state and say, hey, you know, either they recently purchased it or they're, they recognize something that's wrong.

And they're like, how can how can you help help me fix what this problem is?

And so, um, and some of those cases, we started having just kind of preliminary conversations with them, start getting a little bit of their base on like, okay, what is concerning to them?

What do they see different in the system?

What do they want to change?

What do they want to improve?

-[Carlee] Wonderful.

Something I'm so curious about.

So the state of Nebraska has been facing a lot of wildfires.

How is that affecting these streams?

And are you guys doing anything to look into how that's affecting it?

- Yeah, it's, and coincidentally, this year is kind of a, kind of an experiment in that sense.

Yes, it has an impact.

What levels is tough to say.

It depends on the scale of the, you know, the fires and how much impact it had right near the stream areas.

Some of our big concerns in the past that we've seen is, you know, when there's a lot of fallen timber due to the fires and rain always subsequently falls with a bunch of rain.

And so all the things off the landscape then washes into that stream or that river area.

And it has great impacts because it essentially throws things out of balance a little bit from a, just a different type of nutrients that's moving into that system.

And it impacts kind of the the oxygen that's in the water for some of the fish.

So we sometimes see kind of a temporarily sag in some of the species struggling a little bit for a little bit.

Sometimes they are able to seek other refuge and move out of that area.

Specifically, if they can move downstream or upstream and find other habitats to move into that area.

Um, other situations, there's some consequences on some of that stuff.

We've recently have just this last couple of weeks based on the fires out by Fort Robinson Park.

Um, we were actually a study site was already in place.

And so we've got monitoring loggers that are deployed out there to kind of keep checks on things just so that was kind of just a lucky thing.

Luck more than anything else to already have them out there.

And so we're going to kind of monitor that throughout the year and see what that response is and see kind of what things happen and how that system changes through these events.

So yeah.

-[Carlee] So you can kind of see that before, during, and after.

-[Thad] That's the hope.

- Yeah.

-[Thad] That's the hope.

- Interesting.

-[Thad] And the perks is some of that is having enough of that information prior to know what that system was actively happening from a natural state.

Now following its through its kind of storied process of post these events in that area.

Seeing how things change through that system is, is going to be kind of very interesting for us.

- So, Thad, before we leave today, I'm curious, what are some great places people can experience these unique cool water streams in Nebraska?

- You know, if I had to pick, my favorite spot in Nebraska is clear out in the Panhandle Sowbelly Creek at Coffee Park, so it's between Fort Robinson State Park and Harrison, kind of in Sowbelly Canyon.

It's a gorgeous place, surprisingly.

Have a lot of streams in the North Platte River basin too, so out by Scottsbluff area, some kind of unique areas and opportunities to fish.

-[Carlee] Awesome.

So we need people to get out to check those places out and enjoy them in the state.

- Certainly.

- Yeah.

Well, it was great to have you in today.

Thad, Thank you for joining me.

- Yep.

Thanks.

Glad to be here.

- Up next, we're off to the Spring Creek Prairie Audubon Center, where Jason, the Birdnerd, highlights the important work being done to connect people with Nebraska's remarkable grassland songbirds.

(no audio) (bright music) -[Carlee] So, Jason, you are the senior education manager here at Spring Creek Prairie Audubon Center.

But when I first met you, I met you as Jason, the Birdnerd.

-[Jason] Yeah.

- Where does that come from?

- So I added the birdnerd to my name.

Probably.

Oh, gosh.

It's got to be 15 to 20 years ago now.

-[Carlee] Okay.

- I was working for the US Fish and Wildlife Service at the time.

I had been doing some biological surveys, but then had transferred into a park ranger and doing a lot of environmental education with kids.

If I introduce myself as Jason, the Birdnerd one, my last name is hard to say.

So they didn't always have to keep saying Mr.

St.

Sauveur, (bright music) but they loved saying Mr.

Birdnerd, and it kind of just bridged that gap of, you know, science is over here and exploring is over here.

Like, and we could just get past all of that and have a lot of fun.

(bright music) (whistling) (bright music) (birds singing) (whispers) It's over there.

-[Carlee] So we are witnessing a loss, a very steep loss in grassland birds in Nebraska and the Great Plains and in many other places in this country and even beyond.

Why is that?

- Oh.

Several reasons.

The largest is just habitat loss.

Um, if you look at the grasslands historically that were across the country, 2 to 4% of that habitat left.

So that's the biggest problem.

Now, why some of that habitat is gone has different reasons, right.

Some of it's just development, right?

We need more space.

We have hospitals, schools, roads.

We have a lot of agriculture.

Really important, right?

We need the food.

But it also takes a lot of space.

And it's not compatible for most birds.

Not all, but not most grassland birds.

(bright music) Then there are many other things that are causing those declines.

You have pesticide getting into water and air that are causing problems for birds.

You've got outdoor cats, which is a huge problem in especially suburban areas next to prairies and areas, air pollution, there's just a lot of things that are causing that.

If you look at the past three years in Nebraska, we're in a severe drought that's going to stress any wildlife.

Grassland birds are having a tough time.

- And these spots that are still here for habitat, you can just think of them as like postage stamp prairies so that with the habitat being fragmented, what is here is really important to keep as pristine as possible.

And that's a lot of what you're doing here.

- The thing we've really learned over the years is getting back to connecting those postage stamps.

So actually working with local landowners and any other green spaces so that we can have what we call more of a connected green area, and we have habitat that they can move between where we can make it still viable for humans and birds to work together.

And there's then more habitat on the complex of land around us, and not only at Spring Creek and other spaces like this.

- The loss of birds can highlight a bigger concern for other species and even maybe be a red flag for us as we're kind of thinking about our environment and how we move through it and how we're relying on it, too.

-[Jason] You don't have a healthy bird population if you don't have a healthy insect population.

You don't have a healthy insect population.

If you don't have a healthy plant population, right?

If you can help, any part of a habitat, habitat means your home, your own yard, your own landscape, whatever that looks like, that's going to help birds in some way, ultimately.

(bright music) There's this whole big idea, right?

Like nature's out there and you have to drive 20 miles to get to it, uh-huh, right?

We are all a part of it.

But one of the most impactful ways right now that we're telling folks that they can help birds, is planting native plants to the area.

You're in even 5 to 10% of that landscape that you might be in.

It's a really simple thing you can do.

Cool thing in Nebraska is we have so many more nurseries and businesses that are selling native plants that you can get, so the resources are there.

That's what I tell people.

If you want to help birds get some more native plants on the landscape.

- Could you give some examples of birds that are in decline?

-[Jason] Grasshopper Sparrow a bird a lot of people don't see unless you get out to the prairie.

Also kind of bland, right?

Kind of just hides in the grass.

Makes a little grasshopper noise like.

(makes grasshopper bird noise) Bobolink, one of my favorites of all times.

They're this really cool.

The male is a black, white, little black bird with a big little white puffed cap up here.

Sounds like R2D2 out above the tall grass makes this or a jazz singer like he's making it up as he's going, right.

(making bobolink bird sound) Like all these crazy noises.

And the north of us, they don't breed right here in Nebraska.

But as you get into the northern Great Plains, you also have Baird's Sparrow, Vesper Sparrow.

There's a whole suite of sparrows that use the grasslands that are also in steep decline.

-[Carlee] Many of these birds, I think, are pretty unassuming out in the grass, too.

They all they are good at blending in, which is kind of the point for them, but I think they can be overlooked sometimes until you hear them.

That's where the grassland birds really shine.

Is hearing that chorus at dawn and throughout the days.

- Unless you're a Henslow's sparrow.

Another one of our declining grassland specialties in Spring Creek is sort of a small stronghold for them.

We're on the western edge of their range in the United States.

Um, they have probably one of the shortest songs of any bird.

They're so unassuming, their whole song is (makes Henslow's bird sound) (no audio) Right.

That's it.

Just a little.

(short whistle) (laughing) So they get missed a lot.

One of the most requested is the Eastern and Western Meadowlark.

They're really hard to tell apart.

There are a lot of people in Nebraska's favorite birds.

Western is the more famous bird.

It's got a very melodic up and down kind of song.

(bird whistle) Eastern is a little higher and it tends to be thinner in pitch, and it tends to always go down.

Not always.

There's a mnemonic for it to some people taught me of in the spring of the year.

So Eastern meadowlark goes.

(whistles) So it's a little higher and whiny goes down.

The other one goes all over the place.

- Well, I have learned a lot about birds.

I think that they're just a doorway into the wonderful natural world.

And I have so enjoyed spending the day with you today.

Thanks for talking with me, and I hope we get to go out and look at some birds.

- Absolutely.

Let's do it.

Thank you.

(bright music) The ones with the lighter kind of tan underneath and brown on the back is rough-wing.

One of the reasons people don't like Blue Jays, right?

They work in teams like a little gang.

(bright music) -[Carlee] There she is.

Yeah.

Well, I think is really fun too, is you can learn so much about what's on the landscape by listening.

So knowing that I'm hearing a red-winged blackbird, I know there's water close by.

(uplifting music) Thank you for joining us on this edition of Conservation Works.

We leave you now with soaring views of Gilbert-Baker Wildlife Management Area, where rugged hills and open spaces provide a haven for wildlife, ranging from songbirds to deer and even the occasional mountain lion.

(uplifting music) (no audio) (gentle music) -[Announcer] Support for Conservation Works provided by the Clare M. Hubbard Foundation.

Ken and Pat Cheloha, the Carol Gendler estate, and Larry and Pat Ruth.

(gentle music)