Columbia, Mo. (May 21, 2025) — The Mississippi Ag & Water Desk is proud to announce the winners of its first-ever photography contest. As part of our collaborative reporting project on the threats to and benefits of American wetlands, “Down the Drain,” we asked photographers to submit their best shots in the categories of landscapes, wildlife, and people/recreation. Thank you to everyone who participated!
Desk research assistant Dominique Hodge led the contest, and shares the winners:
WILDLIFE
The winner of our Wildlife category is Ken Petersen, with this incredible shot of a muskrat. We like that it highlights an under-recognized part of the wetlands ecosystem (and it’s cute). Muskrats primarily feed on aquatic plants, and the one pictured is snacking on marsh vegetation at the Mississippi Gateway Regional Park in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota.
The Missouri Department of Conservation says muskrat “feeding habits can help wetland managers maintain the proper proportion of open water and vegetation for waterfowl.”
We love that Petersen captured some of that behavior, highlighting the relationship with the food web.
LANDSCAPE
In our Landscape category, the winner is this drone image by Paul Krahn. It shows the floodplain wetlands surrounding Fancy Creek in Richland County, Wisconsin. We like that it captures an expansive view of the creek and surrounding landscape, and the story it tells. Krahn reports the stream was straightened into a ditch in the 1940s, and that Trout Unlimited and its partners plan to remove the ditch and restore the stream to its natural, meandering channel (which you can still see) as part of an upcoming project. Krahn says this will restore shallow groundwater and floodplain connectivity while supporting the tussock sedge wetland community that exists today.
PEOPLE/RECREATION
Finally, the winner of our People/Recreation category is Jean McGuire’s “Smart Wetland” image. Smart Wetlands are small constructed wetlands along ditches and streams on farms, and are designed to remove excess nutrients from agricultural runoff before it leaves the fields, without using too much prime land. The image shows Wetlands Initiative staff conducting a plant survey surrounded by a dense variety of plants.
We enjoyed the unique perspective of the image with all of the greenery, and again, how it tells a story about how we work with wetlands and the way wetlands can work for us.
Congrats to all of our winners, and a huge thank you to everyone that participated in this project. One of our goals at the Desk is to try new things on each project we tackle, and we hope this has helped more people encounter our work on wetlands and learn about our Basin community.
We also want to encourage you to take some time to explore “Down the Drain.” Our team spent months reporting, researching and digging into every angle of wetlands along the Mississippi, and we’re so proud to share it with you.
The Mississippi River Basin Ag & Water Desk is an independent reporting network based at the University of Missouri in partnership with Report for America, with major funding from the Walton Family Foundation.