PBT was featured in the Fall 2023 Sierra Magazine article titled “Thinking Like A Watershed,” written by Carson Vaughan and photographed by Mike, Mariah Lundgren and Ethan Freese from the PBT team.
PBT - New Website
Great Plains Exhibition - Flint Hills Discovery Center
Mike’s Great Plains exhibition will be featured at the Flint Hills Discovery Center September 23, 2023-January 7-2024. See the link below for more details.
https://www.flinthillsdiscovery.org/761/Coming-Soon-Great-Plains
Omaha Press Club Speaking Engagement
Mike will be speaking at the Omaha Press Club on September 21 at Noon. Details can be found in the link below.
Bison and Waterfalls - New Class at UNL
Mike is faculty at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln and teaches a number of conservation storytelling courses. The newest class, “Bison and Waterfalls” will be offered during Fall Break 2024. See details below.
Under the Wire - New Film and Photo Project Coming Soon
PBT is excited to announce it’s most recent film and photo project, "Under the Wire". The film and photo essay will be released this fall!
Pronghorn are a species endemic to North America, found in the vast sagebrush sea of the American West, and like many species, need room to roam. They need to be able to move and migrate, sometimes quickly, across large tracks of ground to avoid bad weather and find food. The North Platte River Valley along the Colorado/Wyoming border is rich with diversity, held mostly in private ownership. The rangelands stewarded by the ranchers in this area make ideal habitat for pronghorn and other wildlife species. However, the fences used to keep livestock in pastures can be barriers to the pronghorn and other wildlife movements.
This is a story about a community of people working together to improve fencelines to help these animals move more freely. It also celebrates the wildlife that call the Upper North Platte River Valley home and the folks living and working on this land to help keep these animals around for generations.
Ranchlands Podcast Feature
Mike was recently interviewed for episode 13 of the Ranchlands Podcast. Listen to that podcast in the link below, or on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.
Wetlands of Nebraska: Project Release
The Wetlands of Nebraska project materials were released on Febraury 2, 2023! In partnership with Nebraska Game and Parks Commission, Platte Basin Timelapse embarked on a multi-year project titled, “Wetlands of Nebraska: An Outreach and Education Project”. This project aims to increase awareness of the importance of the wetlands in Nebraska and why we need to conserve them. The products from this project include an updated Nebraska Wetlands guidebook, a student wetland activity booklet, and a series of multimedia products including films and ESRI StoryMaps.
The products from this project can be accessed HERE
Prairie Cranes & Sandhills Chickens Pop-Up Class
Michael Forsberg and Larkin Powell will lead a for-credit study tour to the Platte River and Sandhills regions during the University of Nebraska–Lincoln’s Spring Break 2023, “Prairie Cranes and Sandhill Chickens.” The 1-credit NRES 493 course will provide experiences in blinds with sandhill cranes and greater prairie chickens, with a focus on how conservation organizations and private individuals work to conserve these critical species and their landscapes in Nebraska. Students will network with stakeholders and develop an awareness for influence of culture, politics, economics, and history in natural resource management and use.
In Nebraska, Bighorn Sheep Reclaim Their Former High Plains Home
The short film titled, “High Plains Wild” featuring Mike and his work in western Nebraska documenting the reintroduced Bighorn Sheep population won an award with the annual Yale Environment 360 contest.
Watch the film and read the article in the link below: https://e360.yale.edu/features/2022-film-contest-runner-up-bighorn-sheep-nebraska
Plains, Cranes, and a Watershed: Presentation
On July 14, 2022 Mike gave a talk to the International Crane Foundation titled: Plains, Cranes, and a Watershed.
“Magic happens in the heart of North America each March when nearly a million Sandhill Cranes descend to the Platte River Valley in central Nebraska. In that beautiful moment of spring is the largest gathering of cranes in the world. The braided river serves as the nexus of a migratory flyway, a once vast prairie ecosystem and a watershed with a deep history.
Michael will take us on a lifelong personal journey with camera in hand following cranes up and down the Central Flyway, and exploring the Great Plains – once one of the greatest grasslands on Earth. See in a new way his home watershed where he co-founded an innovative multi-media storytelling project called Platte Basin Timelapse that leverages the power of photography to explore the questions of where our water comes from and what it means to live in a watershed community.
Healthy watersheds, resilient grasslands and the connectivity of migratory flyways are central to almost every conversation we have about crane conservation in the world today. And those conversations are stories and imagery that, when shared, have the power to elevate the science and transcend the politics to help each of us connect personally, care deeply and understand what is at stake.”
Introduction to Conservation Photography - University of Nebraska Class
Mike and his team at Platte Basin Timelapse will be teaching NRES 260: Introduction to Conservation Photography to undergraduate students at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln this coming Fall. This is the first conservation photography course to be taught at the University of Nebraska. This is the first step Mike and his team are working towards to create an undergraduate minor in conservation storytelling at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln.
Film Festivals 2022
A few of Platte Basin Timelapse's short films featuring Mike and his work telling natural history stories throughout the Platte Basin are official selections for the 2022 Wildlife Conservation Film Festival, Wild and Working Lands Film Festival, and the Wyoming International Film Festival. The films are titled "A Trout with Feathers" and "High Plains Wild".
Ranchlands Review: River in the Sky
There is a river in the sky that washes up the center of the continent each spring and its current rushes and rolls with waves of wings. –Michael Forsberg
Recently Mike was invited by his friends at Ranchlands to write a brief essay accompanied by photographs prompted by the theme of “passage”.
Read the story here: https://ranchlands.com/2022/03/24/river-in-the-sky/
Pop-up Class: Prairie Cranes and Sandhill Chickens
In March, over Spring Break, Mike taught a popup class at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln with wildlife professor Larkin Powell called "Prairie Cranes & Sandhill Chickens". This class took a group of students to the Platte River and Nebraska Sandhills and provided experience in blinds with Sandhill Cranes and Greater Prairie Chickens, with a focus on how conservation organizations and private individuals work to conserve these critical species and their landscapes in Nebraska.
Counting Cranes–New PBT Film
Imagine trying to count hundreds of thousands of birds in a matter of seconds. This is what Andy Caven does every spring… from a plane. In March, upwards of a million sandhill cranes pass through Nebraska's central Platte River Valley. For the past 20 years, the Crane Trust has conducted aerial surveys of sandhill crane roosts to get an accurate count of the number of birds that pass through. Andy and his team take us behind the scenes to show us how this process is done, what they have learned, and why it's important.
The Nature Photographer by NANPA - Plains, Cranes and Watersheds featuring Michael Forsberg
Mike was recently featured on the podcast series, “Wild and Exposed” by NANPA.
Hear how Mike and his partners are building community around a watershed. Plus, hear about Mike’s journey to document the migration path of sandhill cranes, a new project on whooping cranes, and other fun things he loves to photograph in the Great Plains. Winner of NANPA’s 2017 Environmental Impact Award and the Sierra Club’s 2017 Ansel Adams Award for Conservation, Mike joins NANPA President Dawn Wilson and Wild and Exposed’s Ron Hayes, Jason Loftus and Mark Raycroft for this inspiring episode.
Listen HERE >>> https://www.wildandexposed.com/journal/lt3zw44z3hy6pmb-6lrdl-6pb4d-bsgm2-zj6b4-ygpm3-a7hgn-m7srp
Wetlands of Nebraska: An Outreach and Education Project
A project PBT is currently working on in partnership with Nebraska Game and Parks Commission is called Wetlands of Nebraska: An Outreach and Education Project. This project will produce and distribute a series of integrated wetland outreach and education products to increase awareness of the importance of wetlands in Nebraska and understand the need for wetland conservation. The products will be published Fall 2022 but please check our social media accounts to follow along the way.
On the Move: Pronghorn Migrations Across Seasons
Over the past year, the National Wildlife Federation and The Nature Conservancy of Montana have been partnering on a project across the Northern Great Plains, using pronghorn as the main character to identify the importance of connectivity across this vast landscape. Please follow this link http://nature.org/pronghornseasons to the interactive Story Map, On the Move, to follow pronghorn migrations, and their interactions and requirements over the seasons of a given year.
There is an introductory minute-long YouTube video that you can watch as well - YouTube link is here
Mike helped advise on the project, and his images appear throughout the StoryMap.
Summit Nature & Conservation 2021
Mike recently instructed at the Summit Nature & Conservation Workshop . The Summit Nature & Conservation Workshop is a long-standing workshop held in Jackson, Wyoming taught by photography instructors who are some of the best in the business.
