Mike Forsberg

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My Story
Publications
Background
Grants
Courses Taught

Contact Information

Title	Conservation Photographer
Faculty Rank	Research Assistant Professor
Address	319 South Hardin Hall 3310 Holdrege South Lincoln NE 68583–0973 East Campus
Phone	office: 402-472-8071
E-mail	mforsberg2@unl.edu

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My Story

Hi Everyone. My name is Mike Forsberg. I am a conservation photographer and have focused most of my career working in the Great Plains of North America, once was one of the greatest grassland ecosystems on Earth.

I was born and raised in Lincoln, Nebraska, received a degree in Geography from UNL, and worked my way through college as a trip leader for the Outdoor Adventures Program. After brief stints in graduate school and as a seasonal ranger in Yellowstone, I landed my first full time photography job as a staff photographer and writer for NEBRASKAland Magazine, the state’s conservation publication. There I learned the ropes of telling natural history and conservation stories from a generous team of mentors who are still heroes of mine today. Then I struck out on my own to start my own freelance photography business and gallery to explore beyond the borders of the state and work on longer term book projects and films dedicated to subjects like Sandhill cranes and North America’s Great Plains, while raising a family. Today we are proud to say our two daughters are in college, and both at the University of Nebraska.

I first started working with the UNL in 2011 when my friend and colleague Michael Farrell and I co-founded Platte Basin Timelapse ( www.plattebasintimelapse.com), a long-term documentary project that leverages the power of photography and storytelling to braid together stories connected to water and watersheds here in Nebraska and beyond. The Platte Basin has been both a perfect stage and a learning laboratory for the project, and as we approach our 10-year anniversary in 2021, PBT has moved to the School of Natural Resources and we couldn’t be more excited to join the SNR team.

Looking forward, I’m very interested in continuing our storytelling work where the land serves as our classroom. Where our students, faculty and staff can pull up the straight lines on a map and explore our landscapes as watersheds, investigate the connectivity of wildlife movements and migrations, see the intersection of ecology and economy, better understand the resiliency of the land and working landscapes, and building community by finding common ground. Together, I hope we can evolve a program that propels conservation and science communication forward, and grow the next generation of conservation storytellers.

If someone would have told me when I was in high school that I would be a photographer, raise a family and happily live most of my life in Nebraska, I would have laughed them right out of the room. But life has a funny way of taking you in the direction it wants you to go, and it can be an amazing journey. Taking a moment now to look back in the rear-view mirror, I wouldn’t have wished it any other way. The door is always open, so please reach out any time.

Feature Stories

Class offers Nebraska as spring break destination (1/28/2025)
Forsberg publishes book on the lives of rare North American crane species (11/4/2024)
Nebraska scientist documents badgers and coyotes hunting together (9/30/2024)
Conservation Photographer Michael Forsberg’s Images Illustrate April National Geographic Article (4/26/2024)
New book celebrates natural, human elements of Nebraska Sandhills (4/5/2024)

Selected Publications

Forsberg M. 2024. Into Whooperland – A Photographer’s Journey with Whooping Cranes. Michael Forsberg Photography. 224 pgs. https://michaelforsberg.com/merchandise/intowhooperland	Online
Freese, E., Harner, M. Lundgren, T. Gilmore, M. Forsberg. Leveraging imagery to build community and increase understanding of a watershed. AWRA, UCOWR, NIWR Joint Water Resources Conference. St. Louis, MO. October 2024.
Going the Distance. The harrowing 5000-mile flight of North America’s Wild Whooping Cranes. National Geographic Magazine. April 2024. Pgs 112-131. Author Rene Ebersole. Photographs Michael Forsberg. https://nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/whooping-cranes-migration-flightendangered	Online
Andrew J. Caven, Michael L. Forsberg. 28 August 2023. Preliminary Report. Wood Buffalo National Park, Parks Canada, Fort Smith Northwest Territories Canada. North American Crane Working Group Meeting, Baraboo, Wisconsin.
Thinking Like A Watershed – Platte Basin Timelapse Turns Science Into Photographic Poetry. Sierra Magazine. Fall feature 2023 issue. Pgs 40-47. Author Carson Vaughan. Photographs Michael Forsberg and Platte Basin Timelapse.	Online
Caven, A. J., Koupal, K. D., Baasch, D. M., Buckley, E. M., Malzahn, J., Forsberg, M. L., Lundgren, M. (2021). One home is a house for many: temporal portioning of vertebrates on an American Beaver lodge. The American Midland Naturalist(81(4)), 592-607.
Farrell, J. M., Forsberg, M. Great Plains - America's Lingering Wild.
Forsberg, M. (2021). On the Move: Pronghorn Migrations Across Seasons. The Nature Conservancy; The National Wildlife Federation. http://nature.org/pronghornseasons	Online
Forsberg, M. (2021). Whooping Crane (Grus americana) family consumes a diversity of aquatic vertebrates during fall migration stopover at the Platte River, Nebraska. Western North American Naturalist. 81(4):592-607	Online
Forsberg. M.L. 2020. The Life Aquatic. Audubon Magazine.	Online
Brinley Buckley, E.M., A.J. Caven, B.L. Gottesman, M.J. Harner, B.C. Pijanowski, and M.L. Forsberg. 2018. Assessing biological and environmental effects of a total solar eclipse with passive multimodal technologies. Ecological Indicators 95:353-369	Online
Brinley Buckley, E.M., A.J. Caven, B.L. Gottesman, M.J. Harner, B.C. Pijanowski, and M.L. Forsberg. 2018. Biological and environmental datasets from the August 2017 total solar eclipse. Data in Brief 21:552-555	Online
Brinley Buckley, E. M., Allen, C., Forsberg, M., Farrell, M., Caven., A. J. (2017). Capturing change: the duality of time lapse imagery to acquire data and depict ecological dynamics. Ecology and Society, 22(3), Article 30.	Online
Forsberg, M.L., and K. Geluso. 2017. Terrapene ornata (Ornate Box Turtle): Scavenging. Herpetological Review 48:429	Online
Geluso, K. and M.L. Forsberg. 2017. Hitching a ride: First record of a Least Chipmunk (Tamias minimus) in eastern Nebraska. Transactions of the Nebraska Academy of Sciences 37:28-31	Online
Johnsgard, P. E. Fowler, M. Forsberg, M. Bomberger Brown, D. Ebbeka, J. Loomis and P. Freeman. 2014. Game Birds of the World: A catalog of the Madson collection. School of Natural Resources, and University of e Museum. 117 pp.	Online
Forsberg, M. O'Brien, D., Wishart, D., Koozer, T. 2009. Great Plains America's Lingering Wild. University Of Chicago Press. pp. 256.
Great Plains – America’s Lingering Wild. University of Chicago Press. 2009. 260 pgs
On Ancient Wings – The Sandhill Cranes of North America. 2004. Self-published 1st edition. University of Nebraska Press 2nd and 3rd editions. 168 pgs

Degree	Major	Institution	Year Awarded
Bachelor of Science	Geography	University of Nebraska-Lincoln	1989

Title	Awarded by	Year Awarded
The J. Sherwood Chalmers Medal – Conservation Photography	Garden Club of America	2020
Ansel Adams Award for Conservation Photography	Sierra Club	2017
Environmental Impact Award	North American Nature Photographers Association	2017
Honorary Nebraska Master Naturalist	Nebraska Master Naturalist	2017
Nebraska Statehood Forever Stamp	US Postal Service	2016
Great Plains Book Prize – Great Plains, America’s Lingering Wild	Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska	2010
Mission Award	North American Nature Photographers Association	2009
Conservation Education Award	The Wildlife Society	2004
American Scenes Series, International Stamp – Nine-Mile Prairie	US Postal Service	2001

Name	Position
International League of Conservation Photographers	Senior Fellow
National Geographic Creative	Represented photographer
North American Nature Photographers Association	Charter member
Prairie Corridor	Co-chair, Prairie Corridor Cabinet

Grants

Currently this page only displays grants that were awarded on 1/1/ 2009 to the present. If a grant was awarded prior to 1/1/ 2009 and is still active, it will not be displayed on this page.

Grant Title	Nebraska National Guard Whooping Crane Monitoring Project (Additional Funding)
Starting Date	05/23/2024	Investigator(s) Michael Forsberg
Ending Date	09/07/2024
Funding Level	$12,700.00
Funding Agency	Nebraska Millitary Department

Grant Title	Nebraska National Guard Whooping Crane Monitoring Project (Additional Funding)
Starting Date	05/23/2024	Investigator(s) Michael Forsberg
Ending Date	09/07/2024
Funding Level	$1,270.00
Funding Agency	Nebraska Millitary Department

Grant Title	Time-Lapse Chute Monitoring Services
Starting Date	01/18/2024	Investigator(s) Michael Forsberg
Ending Date	09/30/2024
Funding Level	$15,000.00
Funding Agency	Nebraska Millitary Department

Grant Title	Nebraska National Guard Whooping Crane Monitoring Project
Starting Date	01/01/2024	Investigator(s) Michael Forsberg
Ending Date	09/30/2024
Funding Level	$59,950.00
Funding Agency	Nebraska Millitary Department

Grant Title	Time-Lapse Chute Monitoring Services
Starting Date	03/08/2023	Investigator(s) Michael Forsberg
Ending Date	09/30/2023
Funding Level	$15,000.00
Funding Agency	Nebraska Military Department

Grant Title	Inventory of Nocturnal Macro-Moths in the Central Platte River Valley, with a focus on Erebidae and Sphingidae
Starting Date	09/01/2022	Investigator(s) Michael Forsberg
Ending Date	12/31/2022
Funding Level	$4,081.00
Funding Agency	Platte River Whooping Crane Maintance Trust

Grant Title	Image-Based Streamflow and Water Quality Modeling
Starting Date	10/01/2021	Investigator(s) Troy Gilmore Michael Forsberg
Ending Date	09/30/2022
Funding Level	$20,000.00
Funding Agency	U.S. Geological Survey via Nebraska Water Center

Grant Title	Time-Lapse Chute Monitoring Services (Additional Funding)
Starting Date	01/14/2021	Investigator(s) John Farrell Michael Forsberg
Ending Date	09/30/2021
Funding Level	$15,004.00
Funding Agency	NE Military Department

Grant Title	Wetlands of Nebraska: An Outreach and Education Project
Starting Date	01/23/2020	Investigator(s) Kevin Pope Michael Forsberg
Ending Date	09/30/2022
Funding Level	$109,865.00
Funding Agency	Nebraska Games and Parks Commission / EPA

Course Number	Course Title	Fall Even Years	Fall Odd Years	Spring Even Years	Spring Odd Years
NRES 393	Digital Imaging and Storytelling in Agriculture and Natural Resources	X	X	X	X
NRES 493	Experiences in Natural Resources
NRES 493	Bison & Waterfalls	X	X
NRES 493	Prairie Chickens & Sandhill Cranes			X	X

Mike Forsberg

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