Bison on a Nebraska ranch owned by Ted Turner

In the early 2000s, Ted Turner (a nationally famous TV station owner) privately owned ranches in the western part of the U.S. with over 400,000 acres in Nebraska. . . on which he raised only bison! Turner’s ranches made him Nebraska’s largest landholder, and another contributor to the special niche markets

Archaic Forager camps

The tops of buttes were favored locations for Archaic Forager camps. Image by Linda Miegs

Dr. Michael Voorhies introduces visitors to the Rhino Barn

Paleontologist Dr. Michael Voorhies introduces visitors to the Rhino Barn

Early pots were thick with no shoulder or rim, but were a major technological advance

Early pots were thick with no shoulder or rim, but were a major technological advance. Valley Phase pot (on left) and Loseke Creek ceramic

Wolf-like Dog

The wolf-like dog found near Long Pine, Nebraska, had both slicer teeth and grinders. The slicers at the left could tear meat from carcasses and the grinders at the back of the jaw could crush bones

Lower Loup culture (or Pawnee) paddle

This Lower Loup culture (or Pawnee) paddle was made from a buffalo vertebral spine and decorated with a stylized human figure

Wolf-like Dog

The wolf-like dog found near Long Pine, Nebraska, had both slicer teeth and grinders. The slicers at the left could tear meat from carcasses and the grinders at the back of the jaw could crush bones

American lion, Panthera leo atrox

American lions feed on a caribou while bighorn sheep climb the chalk bluffs of the Republic River Valley. This is how Red Willow County in Nebraska might have looked at the height of the most recent glaciation 18,000 years ago, based on fossils collected from a late Pleistocene site near McCook

Public Access for Pheasant Hunters: Understanding an Emerging Need

Ring‐necked pheasant (Phasianus colchicus; i.e., pheasant) hunting participation is declining across North America, reflecting a larger downward trend in American hunting participation and threatening benefits to grassland conservation and rural economies. To stabilize and expand the pheasant hunting population, we must first identify factors that influence pheasant hunter participation. We used an extensive in‐person hunter survey to test the hypothesis that hunter demographics interact with social‐ecological traits of hunting locations to affect hunter decisions, outcomes, and perceptions. We built a series of Bayesian mixed effects models to parse variation in demographics, perceptions, and hunt outcomes of pheasant hunters interviewed at public access hunting sites across 3 regions in Nebraska, USA, that varied in pheasant abundance and proximity to urban population centers. Among pheasant hunters in Nebraska, access to private lands was negatively related to the human population density of a pheasant hunter’s home ZIP code and the distance a hunter had traveled to reach a hunting location. Pheasant hunters interviewed closer to metropolitan areas tended to be more urban and travel shorter distances, and their parties were more likely to include youth but less likely to include dogs. Hunter satisfaction was positively associated with seeing and harvesting pheasants and hunting with youth. Whereas youth participation and the number of pheasants seen varied by study region, hunter satisfaction did not differ across regions, suggesting that hunters may calibrate their expectations and build their parties based on where they plan to hunt. The variation in hunter demographics across hunting locations and disconnects between social and ecological correlates of hunter satisfaction suggests that diverse pheasant hunting constituencies will be best served by diverse pheasant hunting opportunities