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
