Indiana

Heading out on the water this summer? You can help Indiana DNR track wildlife

Published

9 months ago

June 19, 2025

Heading out on the water this summer? You can help Indiana DNR track wildlife

INDIANAPOLIS — During the months of June and July, you can help the Indiana DNR collect data about wildlife along waterways.

The Paddlecraft Wildlife Index started in 2020. This project utilizes volunteers who are already out paddleboarding, canoeing or kayaking. After paddling, volunteers fill out a short survey via postcard about the number and type of animals spotted.

One volunteer in the Paddlecraft Wildlife Index project is Erica Weddle. She operates Simply Fitness in Brown County. You can often find her leading group paddleboard trips on Yellowwood Lake.

“This time of year, probably three or four times a week,” Weddle explained about how frequently she is on the water.

WRTV

Weddle says when she paddleboards, she encourages lake visitors to use all of their senses to really plug into their surroundings.

“Whether they’re feeling something, seeing something, hearing something, maybe it’s just something new and different for them,” she started. “Encouraging people to stop and think about all that and pause.”

She uses this mindset herself when paddleboarding. She says she loves animal watching, and seeing beavers is her favorite.

Attentiveness like this is useful when monitoring for animals to report back to the DNR.

“Indiana DNR has a history of working with the public on data collection,” explained Andy Byers.

Byers is the Furbearer and Turkey Research Biologist for the Division of Fish and Wildlife and Nature Preserves. He explained how the program got started.

“There was this group of people that’s really passionate about the outdoors and were using Indiana’s waterways to get out and look for wildlife. We wanted to use that to our advantage,” Byers recalled.

Volunteers have been reporting their findings to the DNR with this project since 2020. Last year, paddlers put in more than 2,000 hours of volunteer work.

“If I was going to go out and do that by myself, I would have to work 40 hours a week all year, just to collect that much data,” Byers said. “That’s a huge amount of work!”

Volunteers who are already out on the water are acting as the eyes and ears of the DNR to help keep an eye on animal populations.

With this survey, the DNR is specifically interested in 12 animals. They are watching for four mammals: beaver, river otter, muskrat, and mink. There are five birds: bald eagle, great blue heron, osprey, great egret, and kingfisher. There are also three types of turtle: painted turtle, red-eared slider, and Blanding’s turtle.

Weddle took WRTV out onto the lake. Along the way, she was quick to point out the birds flying above, the locations where she typically sees beavers, and all the other animals she spotted.

“Today we saw some blue herons and a couple of turtles,” Weddle explained. “Getting people out on the water and in nature is key to my mission, but also to the DNR.”

The data on the postcard (the time spent on the water, the type of animals, and the number of animals) is used by many different departments in the DNR, not just for Byers and his team.

“We want to share this data with the other biologists that work for DNR who can use that for management decisions,” Byers explained. “We’re also sharing that data with property managers around the state so they can kind of see what’s going on with the land they manage.”

Byers shared that there are over 2,700 volunteers with the program all across the state. He said there are hotspots of volunteers in places like Brown, Steuben, and LaGrange Counties.

You can participate in this program by sending a postcard from a single trip, or send multiple postcards if you’ll be out paddling multiple times throughout June and July.

You can find a link to volunteer in the Paddlecraft Wildlife Index here.

Once you sign up, the DNR will send you materials to get started, including the postcards that you’ll complete and send back to Byers after your paddle.

Byers is constantly combing through the data provided by volunteers. He hopes that now, in the program’s sixth year, he will be able to start seeing some trends developing.

“The goal of this survey is to establish kind of a long-term data set that we can use to look at trends of these species,” Byers explained. “It gives us a really good idea of where in the state people are seeing these different wildlife species.”

Byers is thankful for volunteers like Weddle, and is hopeful that others who love the water will sign up.

“The more people that we have participating, the more data we get, and the more people get to get out and enjoy Indiana’s waterways,” Byers concluded.

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Indiana

Watch Indiana basketball’s Lamar Wilkerson give his mom a Cadillac

Published

2 hours ago

March 5, 2026

Press Room

Watch Indiana basketball’s Lamar Wilkerson give his mom a Cadillac

Indiana basketball sharpshooter Lamar Wilkerson is known for his generosity.

Upon joining the Hoosiers, he gave a tidy sum of his NIL earnings to his previous program, Sam Houston State.

“I was blessed to be able go from that, from not having a lot, to being here, having a lot more than I even knew what to do with,” Wilkerson said at the time. “I just thought, I can give them this.”

He upped the ante on IU’s Senior Night, giving his mother a Cadillac after the Hoosiers throttled Minnesota.

You could imagine her reaction.

Want more Hoosiers coverage? Sign up for IndyStar’s Hoosiers newsletter. Listen to Mind Your Banners, our IU Athletics-centric podcast, on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Watch the latest on IndyStar TV: Hoosiers.

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Indiana

Indiana basketball vs. Minnesota score, updates tonight: Start time, where to watch

Published

14 hours ago

March 4, 2026

Press Room

Indiana basketball vs. Minnesota score, updates tonight: Start time, where to watch

The Indiana Hoosiers have lost four straight games and are scrambling to earn an NCAA Tournament berth.
The Minnesota Golden Gophers are trying to reach .500 for the season. They beat IU in a Big Ten opener in December.

Indiana (17-12, 8-10 Big Ten) has no room for air as it hosts Minnesota (14-15, 7-11). The Hoosiers have lost four in a row, leaving them on the NCAA Tournament bubble, while the Golden Gophers have won three of their last four. Minnesota beat IU in a conference opener.

We will have score updates and highlights, so remember to refresh.

What time does Indiana basketball play Minnesota tonight, March 4? Start time for Minnesota basketball vs Indiana on Wednesday, March 4, 2026

The Indiana-Minnesota game is at 6:30 p.m. ET on Wednesday, March 4, 2026, at Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall in Bloomington, Indiana.

Where to watch Indiana vs. Minnesota tonight, March 4? What channel is the Minnesota-Indiana on college basketball game today?

Watch college basketball with a free Fubo trial

Indiana vs. Minnesota predictions tonight, March 4

Zach Osterman, IndyStar: Indiana 75-69
“Indiana is on the ropes. Minnesota has nothing to lose. Gophers already beat IU once this year. So picking Minnesota here is going to be trendy. Too trendy. The Ohio State game is tougher to forecast, but the Hoosiers win here.”
Michael Niziolek, Herald-Times: Indiana 78-70
“Can Minnesota spoil IU’s Senior Night? The Gophers upended Indiana in Darian DeVries’ Big Ten debut earlier this season and have been a tough out in conference play. They are just 7-11, but six of those losses are by single digits and two of those came in overtime. The Hoosiers need to do a better job of locking down the perimeter while getting a more balanced scoring effort. Indiana should be able to pull this one out and keep its NCAA Tournament chances alive for another night.”

Where to listen to Indiana vs. Minnesota tonight, March 4, 2026

How much are Indiana vs. Minnesota tickets tonight, March 4, 2026?

IU basketball tickets on StubHub

Basketball rankings college: Indiana vs. Minnesota

As of March 2

(all times ET; with date, day of week, location and opponent, time, TV)

0, Jasai Miles
1, Reed Bailey
2, Jason Drake
3, Lamar Wilkerson
4, Sam Alexis
5, Conor Enright
6, Tayton Conerway
7, Nick Dorn
10, Josh Harris
11, Trent Sisley
12, Tucker DeVries
13, Aleksa Ristic
15, Andrej Acimovic

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Indiana

Trump can’t carry Mike Braun, Indiana Republicans anymore | Opinion

Published

1 day ago

March 4, 2026

Press Room

Trump can’t carry Mike Braun, Indiana Republicans anymore | Opinion

On Iran, as on everything else, Gov. Mike Braun is letting Trump think for him.

Gov. Mike Braun might end up being the last person in MAGAland to realize it, but he and his copartisans are adrift. Braun will be a one-term governor unless he can think for himself and start serving Indiana without regard for what’s best for President Donald Trump.

Braun doesn’t get it yet. His robotic support for Trump’s war with Iran — “decisive leadership on the world stage,” he told reporters March 2 — shows his brain is cryogenically frozen in 2018 even as the world turns toward an unsettling future with a worsening economy and artificial intelligence-guided military operations.

You can almost sympathize with Braun’s unwillingness to put down the MAGA playbook. Braun is among countless political figures who’ve risen to power over the past decade by genuflecting to Trump and embracing his shamelessness.

Amoral populism launched careers, but it won’t sustain weak leaders through tumultuous times.

Iran is dividing MAGA

Voters are looking for substance — and, in Indiana, they’re seeing vacuous men who’ve let go of principles so they can cling to Trump like a talisman for their political careers. That goes for Braun, chief among them, but also for a host of other Republicans, including Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith, Sen. Jim Banks, Attorney General Todd Rokita and Secretary of State Diego Morales, whose temporary claims to power will be forgotten by the next generation.

This MAGA cast of characters achieved success by outsourcing their thinking to a political nerve center. For years, they’ve only had to agree with whatever Trump happened to say today, even if it contradicted what Trump said the day before. Trump’s popularity among conservative voters rewarded groupthink and punished independence.

But Trump’s Iran war adds a critical layer to Americans’ anxieties — including overaggressive immigration enforcement, affordability and a softening job market — which are scrambling U.S. politics and severing the connection between Trump’s stream of consciousness and voter approval.

Some of the savviest MAGA influencers are hedging their bets. Megyn Kelly, Tucker Carlson and other voices whose personal wealth depends on harnessing the hearts and minds of the right are breaking with Trump on Iran — or, perhaps, using Iran as an opportune moment to create distance from a president whose popularity is falling.

MAGA is a declining brand

It’s too soon to say with certainty what’s signal and what’s noise. But we have increasing evidence that the American public (though not necessarily Republican primary voters) are breaking with Trump-aligned Republicans.

Democrats have been out-performing Kamala Harris’ 2024 results by double digits and they have a 7-point lead over Republicans in congressional midterm polling. Most Americans disapprove of Trump’s military strikes on Iran, per Politico.

The winds of change are blowing in Indiana. Republicans who carried water for Trump’s early redistricting push suffered an embarrassing loss in December. Braun, the Indiana face of early redistricting, has a 25% approval rating, according to a Public Policy Polling survey.

Braun’s path out of office runs in multiple directions: He could simply decline to run again, as he did in the Senate; a primary challenger could exploit his 43% approval rating among Republicans; or a Democrat could capitalize on the kind of hometown unpopularity that produces a 16% approval rating in Jasper.

Morales faces the same reckoning. His reelection bid for secretary of state is in deep trouble.

Some Indiana Republicans are more adaptable than others. Banks, for example, is an adept shape-shifter who could likely adopt a sober, statesmanlike persona if he perceived an evolving market demand.

Braun’s internal software does not seem to update so easily. He has time to change, having served just over one year as governor. The next three years will test Braun’s capacity to be something more than he’s been since winning election to the U.S. Senate in 2018.

Braun and his fellow Indiana Republican travelers have sailed as far as Trump’s tailwinds can take them. We’re about to see how they perform when they have to find their own ways.

Contact James Briggs at 317-444-4732 or james.briggs@indystar.com. Follow him on X at @JamesEBriggs.

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