"POTTER, Neb. — When Reed Cammack hears the first meadowlark of spring, he knows his family has made it through another cold, snowy winter on the western South Dakota prairie. Nothing’s better, he says, than getting up at sunrise as the birds light up the area with song.
“It’s part of the flora and fauna of our Great Plains and it’s beautiful to hear,” says Cammack, 42, a sixth-generation rancher who raises cattle on 10,000 acres (4,047 hectares) of mostly unaltered native grasslands.
But the number of returning birds has dropped steeply, despite seemingly ideal habitat. “There are quite a few I don’t see any more and I don’t know for sure why,” says Cammack’s 92-year-old grandfather, Floyd. whose family has allowed conservation groups to install a high-tech tracking tower and to conduct bird surveys."
Tammy Webber reports for the Associated Press August 25, 2023.
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