Sheriff’s officials in Audubon County are asking for your help in solving a case of theft. Authorities say sometime during the evening or overnight hours of February 8th and 9th, tractor weights were stolen from a John Deere tractor in the 300 block of North Market Street, in Audubon. The weights were valued at more than $1,200.

Anyone with any information about the crime is asked to contact the Audubon County Sheriff’s Office at 712-563-2631, or Audubon County Crimestoppers at 712-563-2234.

Bob Bebensee and DNR Conservation Officer Grant Gelle talk about all things outdoors.

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Ice fishing is not recommended over about the southern third of Iowa and caution is advised across the state. D-N-R conservation officer Michael Miller recently had to rescue an ice fisherman who fell through the ice on West Lake near Osceola. Miller says people may get fooled by a couple of cold days and think the ice is safe.

“It takes some pretty extreme conditions to make ice…and now we are having open water and when that water gets blown around by the wind, that weakens the ice,” Miller says. Temperatures were rising again Friday and Miller says that also adds to the problem.

“You don’t make very much ice on sub-32 degree days this time of year,” Miller says, “it needs to be 32 and under for considerable amounts of time.” He says far more ice is lost on warm days than is gained when the temperature might dip down below 32 at night. Miller says the water remains cold and the is a bigger concern when someone falls through the ice than drowning as it does not take long for hypothermia to set in and be deadly.

(Radio Iowa)

The Iowa Department of Natural Resources reports State Conservation Officer Michael Miller was on routine patrol late this (Friday) morning when he saw two men setting up an ice fishing shelter on West Lake Osceola, in southern Iowa. In a press release Miller said “I saw them out there and yelled ‘how much ice are you on?’ and they said ‘three inches.’” He told them to get off the ice immediately.

Miller said one angler made it safely off the ice, but the other broke through about 10 yards from shore.  Office Miller grabbed his throw bag from his vehicle, threw it to the man in the lake and with the help of the other angler, pulled him to shore. It all happened in about five minutes.

According to Miller, the man said he was losing feeling in his hands, and his hands were hurting. “At this point”, he said, “I was more worried about the threat from exposure than from drowning.” Paramedics arrived and examined the angler, who was then released from the scene.

Miller, who covers Clarke and Decatur counties for the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, has seen anglers break through the ice before, but has never pulled one out. He said “I told them next time they want to go ice fishing this time of year, to go north. It’s 48 degrees here with a south wind. Our ice conditions have been deteriorating quickly for some time.”

Ice fishing is not recommended over about the southern third of Iowa. Anglers should use extreme caution during the latter part of the winter as the longer days, thaw-freeze cycles and warmer winds begin to weaken the ice.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) – Once near extinction, the bald eagle population is seeing a spike in eastern Nebraska and western Iowa. The Omaha World-Herald reports that warm temperatures ahead mean the birds are following their waterfowl prey as they head north. Joel Jorgensen, Nebraska Game and Parks’ nongame bird program manager, says the migration makes it prime time for eagle-viewing.

The Game and Parks department documented a record 162 active bald eagle nests in 2016, a huge jump from when the state recorded its first active nest in about a century in 1991.

Jorgensen says the eagle population will flourish as long as illegal shooting of the birds is minimized and the pesticide DDT stays banned. Bald eagles are protected by federal law.

GRAND ISLAND, Neb. (AP) – The nation’s largest 4-H livestock show is relocating from Omaha to Fonner Park in Grand Island, where the Nebraska State Fair runs. The Aksarben Foundation sponsors the Aksarben Stock Show, which began its Omaha run in 1928.  The foundation’s Kevin Kock says moving to Grand Island will help the event expand.

Last year it drew nearly 1,100 4-H participants from surrounding states. Kock says the Fonner Park facilities offer more room than Omaha’s CenturyLink Center, which has hosted the show since opening in 2003.  This year’s stock show will be held from Sept. 28 through Oct. 1.

A professional rodeo has run with the show since 1947, but Kock says a contract for the 2017 rodeo hasn’t been signed yet.

The new U-S quarter featuring Effigy Mounds National Monument in northeast Iowa near Harpers Ferry is now in circulation. The quarter is part of the U-S Mint’s “America the Beautiful” series and Effigy Mounds park Ranger Bob Palmer says it fits the beautiful description very well. “Oh, it’s amazing. In terms of being able to depict Effigy Mounds on something that small — to be honest with you — I was pretty skeptical when this whole process started some time ago,” Palmer says.

He says his skepticism about the quarter quickly changed. “When I saw the coin for the first time I was absolutely blown away that the essence of the Effigy Mounds could be captured on something that’s a little more than an inch in diameter,” according to Palmer. There are some 200 burial mounds at the monument along the Mississippi River Valley, and the coin shows one grouping.

“What it depicts are three mounds, two of what we tend to call bear mounds and then one bird mound. And the orientation of those three mounds represents three mounds that are found up in the south unit of the park,” Palmer says. “So, anyone who is very familiar with the park and very familiar with the various mound groups looks at that and immediately knows what that’s depicting. So, it pretty neat that it’s actually depicting something that is true to life.”

The mounds were believed to have been built by American Indians around one-thousand years ago. President Harry Truman signed the proclamation that created Effigy Mounds National Monument on October 25th, 1949. The quarter was designed by Sioux City native Richard Masters , who is an associate professor of art at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh. Palmer says there’s been a lot of local buzz since the coin was officially released Monday, and he says it could lead to more attention as people across the country discover the coin.

“I would think that if somebody would take a coin out of their pocket and see Effigy Mounds that might lead to a little more interest,” Palmer says. He says the amount of attention they get remains to be seen, but there is certainly a lot of interest in northeast Iowa. Palmer says they get 80 to 85-thousand visitors to the monument every year — and for those Iowans who have never been there — the scenery itself is worth it.

“This part of the state is very different than the rest of the state,” Palmer explains. “And the Effigy Mounds are primarily found…in southern Wisconsin and the do reach into extreme northeast Iowa. And the geography and topography here more represents what you’d find in Wisconsin, southeastern Minnesota and northwestern Illinois. So, it is a place that is special unto itself.”

The visitor center at Effigy Mounds is open year round except for Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Day, New Year’s Day, and during extreme weather conditions. The hours vary and you can check them on their website: https://www.nps.gov/efmo/index.htm

(Radio Iowa)

The foggy days we saw in January could be an indication of the type of weather farmers ace this spring. Iowa State University Extension Climatologist Elwynn Taylor says it may be folklore, but there is some reasonable evidence to think it will be a wet one. “The folklore message is ‘if you have fog in January, you are going to have a wet planting season.’ Or some people say, 90 or 100 days later it’s going to be awfully wet,” Taylor says. “There is some fact behind that because — why would the fog come in — we’ve started to get the flow from the Gulf of Mexico, which is what brings us our moisture.”

He says this year fits the pattern that can give us a wet spring. “It doesn’t mean we always will, but that was the first point we looked at. Be ready for it to be on the wet side of usual at planting time,” he says. While a wet spring is a possibility, Taylor says another better than average yield is also a possibility.

“That is a distinct possibility — now of course everyone who has farmed in the Midwest knows for many years knows that it’s rare to go more than two or three years with above trend-line yield,” Taylor says. “This would be the fourth year. But it does happen. IN fact, five isn’t an unheard of number of years for staying above trend before it dips back below.”

(Radio Iowa)

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has told Iowa environmental regulators that changes made to state clean water standards last year violate federal regulations. The Iowa Environmental Protection Commission approved changes in August that eliminated a rigorous environmental assessment before allowing new contaminants to be introduced to streams, rivers or lakes by city wastewater treatment plants or industry.

The new so-called anti-degradation standards allowed a focus on cost when evaluating introduction of new contaminants into waterways. Environmental groups opposed the change saying it weakened Iowa’s clean water protections and commended the EPA Tuesday for rejecting the changes.

The Iowa Department of Natural Resources, which enforces state environmental rules, did not immediately respond to a message. It’s not immediately clear if the EPA determination will withstand scrutiny of the new Trump administration.

An Iowa State University agricultural economist believes there may be an opportunity for a modest price rally for commodities during the spring. Chad Hart says this year is looking very much like last year, and farmers will need to strike while they can to capitalize on any potential price rally. “We look at prices that time versus now, we’re up on the corn side a little, we’re up on the soybean side by about a dollar fifty. That’s despite having record crops this past year,” Hart “Well, that speaks about this demand that continues to build and work through these crops. And hopefully as we sort of found last year, as we worked through the spring of 2016 we sort of saw a price rally from April to June, and we’ve got the potential to do the same thing over again as we look into 2017.”

Analysts believe the South American crop production will also be good this year, but Hart says it, too, is resembling last year when flooding damaged some of the crops. That’s already showing up in the markets. “We’ve added about 50 cents to the soybean price…so far this year and this month. The South American soybean crop looks big — but can they get it out of the fields, will they be able to — that uncertainty is helping to raise prices right now,” Hart says.

The Iowa State University Extension Grain Marketing Specialist says producers, and trading partners are watching closely the actions of the Trump administration on trade, as it will play a big factor in the prices as well. ‘That is where we are seeing the biggest growth in that demand, and that’s going to be, let’s call it an issue that the administration is going to have to wrestle with over the entirety of the Trump administration — how to continue to promote and grow agricultural trade as we renegotiate some of these trade agreements,” Hart says.

So much of U-S agricultural trade depends on the value of the dollar in foreign nations. Hart says the value of the dollar has been on the increase, however, trading partners have not been deterred from purchasing U-S grown commodities. Hart says he’s hearing that the dollar will continue rise in the coming months, but the demand for the commodities to feed animals is driving the price despite what’s happening with the value of the dollar.

Hart suggests farmers to look at perhaps conducting some forward contracting to take advantage of price rallies when they occur.

(Radio Iowa)