[Jacob Pitzenberger] My ultimate goal with all of my photography and now videography is just to use it as that platform to start a conversation about conservation really.

That's what it all kind of goes back to.

♪♪ [Nebbe] Jacob, can you tell me about the work that you do?

[Jacob Pitzenberger] Yeah, so I manage a private wildlife preserve in Southern Iowa.

We've got roughly 2,200 acres or so that we manage just for diverse native wildlife habitat.

So, a lot of prairie reconstruction, restoration work.

There are five to six remnant prairie sites.

So, that would be prairie that has never been dug or plowed, plant communities that could potentially be 6,000 to 7,000 years old.

[Nebbe] So, as if you're not busy enough, you also are a wildlife photographer.

The camouflage, the patience, the integrating yourself into the environment.

Tell me a little bit about how you have perfected that?

[Jacob Pitzenberger] Yeah, I mean, it's mostly just a test of patience most of the time.

♪♪ [Jacob Pitzenberger] The fun part is as my skills have kind of developed over the years, being able to visualize a photo in your head and then go out and capture it or something very similar when you have a wild animal as one of the aspects of capturing that photo.

It's not always an easy thing to do.

So, it takes a lot of research, a lot of getting to know your subject and their behaviors and the best ways to capture those things.

♪♪ [Jacob Pitzenberger] Making sure that there's habitat there for the wildlife that you eventually end up taking a photograph of is really rewarding.

It feels good knowing that you played a part in every aspect of the photo, not just the final image.

♪♪ [Nebbe] I think that brings us to the Great Backyard Bird Count, which is a four-day event, late winter, it's an international event and they're asking people all over the world to go into their back yards, you have a pretty nice one, and just take stock of the species that they see.

Can you tell me a little bit more about how it works?

[Jacob Pitzenberger] Yeah, again, I'm pretty lucky I think to have over 2,000 acres at my disposal for a back yard bird count.

But yeah, it's as simple as if you have a feeder set up in your back yard or even if you don't, just look out the window, spend at least 15 minutes and you just identify the birds that you see and then there's a lot of apps out there that can help with that now, digital field guides.

And count the birds that you see and you submit them through an app called the eBird.

♪♪ [Jacob Pitzenberger] It's a big citizen science project.

So, all of that is data that can be used by scientists and yeah, it's really important work that anybody can do.

♪♪ [Jacob Pitzenberger] Nature is a participatory sport.

You have to get out there and you have to do it.

You have to just experience it.

That's when you can begin to love it and then you're going to take care of it.

♪♪ [Nebbe] What are some of the things that you do to promote biodiversity in your prairies?

[Jacob Pitzenberger] Fire is probably my favorite.

That has a huge impact on prairie restoration and reconstructions and fighting invasive species.

That's a never-ending battle for sure.

[Jacob Pitzenberger] We'll intercede some areas and try to increase diversity in some of the prairies.

Those are the main ones.

I would consider Iowa a prairie state.

Something like over 70% of this state was prairie, which we have less than 1% of that remaining now.

So, it's something that is I think critically important to try to preserve and to try to reconstruct as much as we can.

When people think of a prairie they just think of kind of like an open grassland, right?

But there's insects that depend on those wildflowers, there's birds that depend on those insects, and everything just kind of builds from the bottom up.

Grassland birds as a group, it's one of the fastest declining group of birds in North America.

♪♪ [Nebbe] What gives you hope for the future?

[Jacob Pitzenberger] Just knowing that I'm not the only person that cares about this stuff.

Other people think it's important and other people are working really, really hard just to try to make things better.

That gives me a lot of hope.

[Nebbe] Seeing a Merlin, seeing an eagle, seeing a Trumpeter Swan.

[Jacob Pitzenberger] Seeing those things that could have so easily gone away forever and seeing them in healthy numbers.

Yeah, that gives me a lot of hope, knowing that the work you do can have a very real impact on future generations.

♪♪ [Jacob Pitzenberger] I had gotten a message that we had close to 100 Trumpeter Swans on the lake.

I brought my camera in with me and you know you've got to get the camera close to the water, so I ended up with my feet in the water and found out very quickly that one of my boots had a hole in it.

One numb foot was completely worth the sight and the experience for sure.

It was wild to see.

And then to be able to capture it in slow motion and you can really see everything, all the detail when they're coming in and their feet were just like giant boats, like the sea plane landing.

Definitely the most special wildlife photography event of my career.

♪♪ ♪♪ [Nebbe] What do you hope each one of us understands about our role in nature?

[Jacob Pitzenberger] I think for everyone to realize that whatever they do, they're having an impact.

And whether that is a positive impact or a negative, you have that choice to make.

And I hope that people would choose to have a positive impact and just to understand that they can really change things.

♪♪