Wildlife

Hands-free driving, prairie chickens and college basketball are among the topics on this week's Newsbuzz episode.

Every spring, nearly a million sandhill cranes pass through an 80-mile stretch of the Platte River in Nebraska on their northward migration.

Justin Wolfe had to end his Air Force career when he was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. Now he's found camaraderie and a new passion through adaptive sports.

In 1968, the day after Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, a third grade teacher in Riceville, Iowa, decided she needed to teach her students what discrimination really felt like.

While filling out state taxes, Iowans have the option of contributing to the Fish/Wildlife Fund – also known as the Chickadee Checkoff. It provides funding to the DNR to support habitat restoration and to monitor and research non-game wildlife, like songbirds and bumblebees.

Iowa birding experts share the feathered friends you may spot in Iowa this winter and the enticing destinations for birders hoping to escape the cold.

Fewer than 10 gray foxes have been confirmed in Iowa. State wildlife officials say a female they’re calling GF2 may reveal clues to understand the canines' decline and help the state come up with a recovery plan.

The recent outbreaks at several poultry operations in northwest Iowa are connected to a virus circulating in wild birds. A different strain infected 13 dairies and 3 poultry operations in late May and June.

The Blank Park Zoo in Des Moines, the Iowa Department of Natural Resources and Iowa State University are working together to boost the survival rate of young Blanding's turtles, which are threatened in Iowa.

Many owls live among us in Iowa, but with their ethereal calls, nocturnal habits and silent flight, they can seem a little otherworldly.