CHEYENNE, Wyo. -- Wildlife advocates are taking the U.S. Forest Service to court over a plan to eliminate prairie dogs from the Thunder Basin National Grassland.

Erik Molvar, executive director of the Western Watersheds Project, one of the groups filing suit in federal court last week, said Thunder Basin is one of the last remaining landscapes with a prairie dog complex large enough to bring the black-footed ferret back from the brink of extinction.

"The Forest Service shouldn't be poisoning a designated sensitive species that they are supposed to be prioritizing for conservation," Molvar asserted. "And they have a legal obligation to foster the reintroduction of black-footed ferrets, because the Thunder Basin is one of the best remaining candidate sites for black-footed ferret reintroduction."

Black-footed ferrets rely exclusively on prairie dogs for food and habitat. The legal battle is over an amendment to a plan which scraps protections and allows for poisoning and sport-shooting prairie dogs, widely viewed as pests by livestock producers.

Molvar noted the livestock industry has worked to eliminate any species it views as endangering their profits, including wolves, grizzly bears and mountain lions. He added Thunder Basin lands are owned by all Americans, and protecting native wildlife should be the baseline for agencies charged with managing those assets.

"You ought to have commercial enterprises co-existing with the native wildlife as a cost of doing business on the public lands," Molvar contended. "Because Americans have a strong interest in native wildlife."

Prairie dogs are a keystone species in the region. Their engineering skills in building tunnels create habitat for burrowing owls, swift foxes and many other native species. Molvar argued the stakes for keeping species such as the black-footed ferret from going extinct are far-reaching, pointing to advice from wildlife-management pioneer Aldo Leopold.

"The first rule of intelligent tinkering is to save all the parts," Molvar emphasized. "Meaning that you shouldn't drive any species extinct because you're not really sure how that species fits into the health of the remainder of the ecosystem that makes human life possible on this planet."

By Enrique Saenz for Mirror Indy.

Broadcast version by Joe Ulery for Indiana News Service reporting for the Mirror Indy-Free Press Indiana-Public News Service Collaboration.

At Marian University on Indianapolis' west side, tucked in between two mansions that now serve as school buildings, lies a sanctuary for native Indiana wildlife.

There, among the three miles of trails winding through the Nina Mason Pulliam Ecolab, is where you'll often find biology professor David Benson. The Ecolab's founding director likes to look for birds up among the trees and atop the bushes. The wetlands and forest are home to more than 170 species of birds.

The trail around the Ecolab's Jens Jensen pond, where Benson often walks, is never quiet. Sounds like running spring water, wind rustling through trees and wildlife trampling through brush or singing their songs create a quiet symphony.

But Benson's trained ear can hear the individual musicians.

"There's a northern cardinal over here that's doing a 'p-pure, p-pure, p-pure' sound. Then there's the 'chewy-chewy-chewy-chewy,' which is a Carolina wren. Then there's a northern flicker doing a 'kee-kee-kee-kee-kee-kee,'" he said.

Benson is an ornithologist and has studied birds for about three decades. His love of birdwatching has pushed him to be one of the world's best. In 2023, he took a sabbatical from teaching to travel the continental U.S. and identify as many birds as possible. He found 611 that year, the 12th most of any birdwatcher in the world.

But Indianapolis residents don't need a passport to see a bounty of birds. About 85 species of birds commonly migrate through Indiana between mid-April and the end of May, making it an excellent place to bird watch.

"Migration for some of the ducks and shore birds can be a little earlier than that, but in the forest here, you can go out and see over 100 species in a day," Benson said.

More and more people are choosing to bird watch. According to a 2024 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service report, 96 million Americans, nearly a third of the country, identify as birdwatchers in some capacity.

"Some people just enjoy the beauty of the birds. They're like artwork hanging up in the branches," Benson said. "Others are interested in the discovery. You never know what you're going to see, so there's a little bit of an adrenaline rush when you see something you haven't seen before."

The rise in birdwatching is a great thing, Benson says, because learning about birds helps people learn about the types of habitats in Indiana that he thinks must be protected. According to a 2019 Cornell University study, there are now 30% fewer birds in the U.S. now than there used to be in the 1970s.

The decline is mainly due to the loss of habitats to development, something happening here in Indiana. The state only has about 21% of its original forestland, 10% of its original wetlands and 1% of its original prairies.

This month, the Trump administration moved to roll back protections for more than 176,000 square miles of national forests, including portions of Indiana's Hoosier National Forest, that opens them to logging. The action could destroy even more bird habitats.

For the last four years, Indiana lawmakers also have rolled back state protections for wetlands, leaving a vast majority of them vulnerable to destruction.

"If you're interested in the birds, and you want to protect the birds, then you've got to protect all these different habitat types that they need as well," Benson said. "You might not necessarily think of yourself as a swamp person or a grassland person, but if you're a bird person, then you've got to appreciate the swamps and the grasslands, too, because certain birds need those habitats."

Benson said Indianapolis is a great place to start birdwatching, and all it takes to become one of the world's best is practice.

A great place for birding

Benson traveled across the country during his world-ranked birding year, including hotspots in southeast Arizona and a region of south Texas known as the Rio Grande Valley.

But he was able to see a large portion of the birds he saw in his world-ranked year close to home. His favorites are warblers, which are small songbirds with bright songs.

"Most of the warblers are a striking combination of colors - reds, yellows and blues," Benson said. "They're jewelry for the trees up there when they're coming through."

Indiana is a "stopover site" for birds migrating between their wintering grounds in the Caribbean, Mexico and Central and South America and breeding grounds in North America. The state's forests and grasslands serve as hotels for birds passing through.

Bird watchers like Cathee Eberle love heading out to Eagle Creek Park. Most mornings she takes her dog Skeeter for a walk along the park's trails and see what types of birds fly her way.

Eberle has been casually birdwatching for the last 10 years. She normally sees songbirds. But sometimes, when she's lucky, she gets to see something less common, like sandhill cranes - long, gray-feathered birds with small, brightly-colored heads topped with red feathers. The cranes have loud calls that can be heard more than 2 miles away.

"It's neat when you see them migrate through in the spring and the fall," she said. "It's really cool because they circle for the longest time, then all of a sudden they just shoot off either north or south depending on the season."

Eberle said that birdwatching helped her realize how small the world really is and how wildlife helps connect us to people half a world away. Someone somewhere, she said, has seen the same birds you're seeing arrive in Indianapolis.

"I always think back to when I was in college. I knew this person who was really into bird watching, and I was like, 'Why?' And now I can see why," she said. "It's just so exciting, because you connect with them."

Becoming a birdwatcher

What you need

David Benson, a biology professor at Marian University and a preeminent bird watcher, said birding is a hobby anyone can take up. The gear needed for bird watching is minimal. Benson only uses binoculars and his phone for birdwatching.

Binoculars are optional but useful for spotting birds at a farther distance than with just the naked eye. A decent pair of binoculars - ones that help you focus on a single area - start at about $150. The National Audubon Society, a nonprofit dedicated to bird conservation, has a useful guide to help you pick the right binoculars for you at different price levels.

Benson also recommends the free phone app from Cornell University's Cornell Lab of Ornithology called Merlin Bird ID.

The app helps you identify birds by their songs and by their appearance. You take a photo of the bird you can see or record what you're hearing and the app gives you a list of birds that have a look the same or have a similar song.

Where to start

You can bird from the comfort of your own home.

"Start with your own backyard. If you can put a feeder out, you'll have birds that'll stay in one spot for a decent amount of time that you can figure out what they are," Benson said.

Check these online resources to figure out which type of feeder and food are best for your situation.

Once you've gotten used to identifying birds, all you need to do to see more is head outside.

"Any city park that's nearby is a fine place to start. Even just walking down a street in your neighborhood is good," he said. "You'll start noticing that you'll find this bird species in this type of tree and this bird species in a different type of habitat."

Benson said the best spots on the west side for birdwatching are Eagle Creek Park and the Ecolab at Marian University, which is open to the public. On the east side, Fort Harrison State Park is Benson's pick for best. He also recommends Holliday Park on the north side and the grounds of the Indiana Statehouse downtown.

The Amos Butler Audubon Society of Central Indiana holds bird walks every Sunday at Eagle Creek Park and at other parks throughout the year.

Advanced birding

Once you get used to birding, Benson recommends expanding your knowledge of birds in the area. He recommends bird guide books like Sibley Guides or others that are specific to Indiana. There are also free computer programs like Thayer Birding Software that can help you familiarize yourself with more bird species.

The Eagle Creek Ornithology Center has a Pokemon-like checklist of birds seen in the area you can use to narrow your bird search.

For more information

For more information about birding, check out state birding organizations like the Indiana Audubon Society or the local Amos Butler Audubon Society of Central Indiana. You can also visit the Eagle Creek Ornithology Center.


Enrique Saenz wrote this article for Mirror Indy.


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Teams of researchers and volunteers will fan out at dawn Friday with their smartphones and binoculars on the Florida Gulf Coast University campus for a 24-hour biological scavenger hunt, known as "BioBlitz."

The annual event comes as new research shows Florida's natural habitats are disappearing at unprecedented rates, with Southwest Florida among the regions most affected. The fifth annual event builds on last year's discovery of 144 species, including the rare two-striped forktail dragonfly and confirmed river otter activity on campus wetlands.

Mercedes Rasler, a senior biology student at the university, hopes to focus her camera to capture another circling osprey, one of the region's most visible raptors.

"We see a lot of ospreys, a lot of red-shouldered hawks, those are kind of our cool raptors," Rasler reported. "In terms of other species, we've got northern mockingbirds, we've got grackles, blue jays, lots of iconic species, but then also some species that people may not know right away."

This year, participants equipped with the iNaturalist app aim to surpass previous records while contributing to a global database supporting conservation efforts. Anyone, regardless of location, can participate by downloading the app and documenting species in their own area.

Oscar Johnson, assistant professor of ornithology at the university, explained the scientific value of BioBlitz, through its not-so-secret goal of empowering "citizen science" to document biodiversity.

"It's a combination of an event where we can get a lot of people outside and looking at nature, learning about nature, looking at cool bugs, birds, mammals, plants, anything that we can find that's living," Johnson outlined. "Learn about identification, natural history."

The event aligns with similar conservation efforts at other Florida schools and organizations. With ongoing budget constraints and staffing reductions across wildlife agencies, state officials said volunteer-collected data now play an increasingly important role in species monitoring efforts.

Wildlife conservationists are working with landowners and concerned Texans to recover at-risk species.

Currently, more than 1,100 animals from salamanders to mountain lions to birds need protection. Grahame Jones, executive director of the Texas Conservation Alliance, said the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department is at the forefront of the work, and added that the agency created a comprehensive program to save the near threatened Guadalupe bass "through stockings in different rivers and creeks, restoration projects in watersheds and rivers, and then the management of invasive plants and how that might affect the rivers. And then also bringing in the public to help them."

The department is updating its Wildlife Action Plan that helps manage and conserve various species to keep them off the threatened and endangered lists. A survey is on the department's website.

The Parks and Wildlife Department is also working to save the threatened Texas horned lizard, or horny toad. John DeFillipo, regional executive director of the National Wildlife Federation, said the agency is partnering with landowners to help repopulate the reptile.

"So, they will release these small horny toads on their property and also the work, which is unique on the horny toads, they coordinated with zoos across the state, and they raised them and released about 1,000 hatchlings," he said. "And then these hatchlings, since they're so young, they're able to produce in the wild."

Jones added that it's easier to keep population numbers up than it is try to recover a species.

"Once they get on a threatened list or endangered species list, the rules change and it's more expensive and there's all sorts of caveats and issues that come up," he said."So the goal is to keep these species off those lists."