Why is the Central Platte Region Important?
The Platte River starts in the Rocky Mountains and meanders across Colorado, Wyoming and Nebraska. Some wildlife which depend on the river include pronghorns, mule deer, jackrabbits, prairie dogs, burrowing owls and mountain plovers. Each spring, the skies over the central Platte and its surrounding wetlands darken as ten million ducks and geese, half a million sandhill cranes and many other species of birds fly in to rest during their long trek through the Central Flyway. The concentration of birds make the Platte one of the world’s great wildlife spectacles. The only remaining wild flock of endangered whooping crane depends on the Platte as a rest stop during its multi-week migration between Texas and Canada.
Pioneers described the Platte River as a mile wide and a foot deep. The river’s broad, unvegetated channels once stretched for miles, giving migratory birds protection from predators. Settlers plowed millions of acres of prairie and drained wetlands. Irrigation canals, dams and water projects dried it up. Today, Platte River wells and surface water projects irrigate millions of acres of farm land. More than three million people get their drinking water largely from the Platte or nearby wells. As a result, water flow has fallen by two-thirds. The river has narrowed in many places to one-tenth of its historic width. Dams stop the flow of scouring sediments, so many of the river’s open channels are now overgrown with vegetation.
In 1997, the governors of Nebraska, Colorado and Wyoming and the Department of the Interior agreed to work together to find a long-term, balanced solution that would meet the needs of people while restoring part of the Platte's historic flows and habitats.
NWF's Accomplishments
In 1970, through a resolution, NWF supported the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service's program to raise whooping cranes in captivity and then release them into a natural environment. NWF helped to persuade the Department of the Interior to designate part of the central Platte River as “critical” habitat for whooping cranes. In 1978, through a lawsuit settlement, NWF helped to establish a 7.5 million dollar Platte River Whooping Crane Maintenance Trust. The Trust's mission is to protect and maintain the physical, hydrological and biological integrity of the Platte as a life support system for whooping cranes and other migratory birds. Since 1998, NWF has participated in the Platte River Cooperative Agreement process by attending negotiating meetings and providing input on the crafting of the Platte River Recovery Implementation Program. In 2001, NWF created Whooper Watch with Nebraska Wildlife Federation. Whooper Watch is a volunteer based whooping crane monitoring and habitat improvement program. NWF is working to secure adoption and implementation of a basin wide Recovery Program that will benefit four target species (whooping cranes, piping plovers, interior least terns, pallid sturgeon) and the central Platte River ecosystem as a whole.
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