Conservation Works host Carlee Moates traces her journey from southeastern Nebraska to conservation storytelling, developing a new way to see along the way.
Personal Essay from Moates:
I'm a Nebraska girl who grew up outside.
I was raised on a farm in the southeastern part of our state and in a creative family. My dad often played his guitar on the porch and mom cut our hair in the pasture where the wind blew it away to be used in bird nests.
As girls, my sister and I collected frogs in our sundress pockets. We carried kittens around our barn in five-gallon buckets and before school, I’d pull a bale of hay out for our horses. I also had many wild neighbors: owls, foxes, raccoons and deer. My family marked seasons by greeting new calves on my grandpa’s ranch in the early spring, camping trips in the Rocky Mountains during summer, and harvest in the fall.
Respect for nature and the lessons it teaches were instilled in me at a young age. I figured I’d grow up to be a veterinarian, as many animal lovers do. I liked science, I was good at math and I had a creative mind.
Could I bring them all together?
While on family trip to town, probably to celebrate a birthday, we wandered into a photographer’s gallery on our way to dinner. I remember being drawn to a photo where I came eye-to-eye with the intense gaze of a burrowing owl. Looking around, Dad said, “You could do something like this.” After all, my parents had given me a red Kodak point-and-shoot camera, something I was steadily becoming obsessed with.
Taking pictures of animals?
Years later, I realized that gallery belonged to Michael Forsberg, a respected, local conservation photographer. Looking back, it’s funny how life has a way of opening doors.
When I began thinking about college, like any 18-year-old, I looked at schools far away from home. I landed in the “big city” of Lincoln at the University of Nebraska. College brought new friends, some tumultuous days in front of the Husker student section, several formative adventures abroad, …and an internship.
It was with a conservation storytelling team called Platte Basin Timelapse, co-founded by photographer Michael Forsberg…the same artist whose gallery I visited as a girl.
So began my freshman year of college.
As a student, I struggled with choosing between the sciences and the arts. So I didn’t.
I pursued both - majoring in fisheries and wildlife biology, as well as journalism. I spent my days hopping from ecophysiology to mass media law.
It was my job at Platte Basin Timelapse that allowed me to connect these two fields of study.
As I learned how the Platte Basin watershed begins in the mountains of Colorado and Wyoming and threads its way across our state, I was developing a new way to see, studying videography and time-lapse while refining my eye behind the lens. Through my work, I’ve witnessed the great crane migration, explored the remote Sandhills and followed the Platte River back into those same Rocky Mountains I scouted as a kid.
After graduation I moved west where I worked on private land doing wildlife conservation for the University of Wyoming. An invitation from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln to pursue a master’s degree brought me back home. I earned a Master of Applied Science and returned to Platte Basin Timelapse, this time as a full-time story producer. It’s a role I continue to hold today.
In this job, you won’t often find me in the same spot two days in a row. My colleagues and I spend deep, intentional time in the field, telling in-depth stories about ecology, conservation and the people who make their lives from the land.
Some days I might be pulling on waders to film fish surveys or record state biologists catching geese. Others may be spent inside soil labs or outside capturing scenes of native prairie seeding.
One of my all-time favorite days was filming from horseback on a Wyoming ranch!
It’s also been my absolute delight to teach conservation photography at UNL’s School of Natural Resources. I am putting cameras in the hands of students seeking careers in conservation, helping them connect with wildlife and working lands across our state.
I’ve been shaped by incredible mentors and as my work continues, I strive to elevate the voices of those who care for the land, those who study it and the wild creatures that move through it – from the Platte River Basin and the Great Plains to the Central Flyway and beyond.
I feel so lucky to spend time among them all, it makes every day rewarding.
And I am so glad you’re joining me on this journey.
Conservation Works premieres Thursday, July 23, at 8 p.m. CT on Nebraska Public Media. The new series explores how Nebraskans are restoring balance between people, land and wildlife through conservation efforts across the state, from returning trumpeter swans and growing bighorn sheep populations to native prairie restoration and amphibian recovery.
Published June 2026