[music playing] Kelly: Well, you could say this episode of the Paw Report will be ribbiting.

Coming up, we're talking about frogs with the executive director of the Douglas Hart Nature Center, but that's not all.

Stay with us.

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Serving the EIU community since 1991.

Fetchers welcomes all pets on a leash.

Is open seven days a week and offers made in the USA food.

Pets supplies for dogs, cats, reptiles, and fish.

Fetchers Pets Supply in Charleston.

Rameen: The Paw Report on WEIU is supported by Rural King, America's farm and home store, livestock feed, farm equipment, pet supplies and more.

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Rob: Dave's Decorating Center is a proud supporter of the Paw Report on WEIU.

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Kelly: Thanks for joining us for this episode of the Paw Report.

We're talking about a couple of different critters on today's episode - not something we do all the time, but you'll see kind of how they're related as we get into it with our guest today from the Douglas Hart Nature Center, Jennifer Tariq.

So a veteran of the Paw Report, we appreciate you coming back and bringing all of your goodies with us.

Today we are talking about bats and all the different kinds of bats that are in Illinois, and then we're going to switch gears midway through and talk about frogs, a couple of different types of frogs.

You host different sessions and seminars with kids all year long on different species, and today we're going to hone in on those, too.

So thank you so much for joining us.

Jennifer: Thanks for having me.

Kelly: We're going to start with bats.

So, yes, there are bats in Illinois.

Jennifer: There are bats.

There are 12 different kinds of bats in Illinois, actually.

We have just a variety.

There's some common ones, like little brown bat, probably wandering around and flying around in your backyard.

But there's some more rare ones, because we have, actually, two federally endangered bats here in Illinois, Indiana bat and gray bat.

Indiana bat probably only has a total population of maybe 250,000, and that's not very many at all.

Kelly: No.

Jennifer: That's why he's on that endangered species list.

Gray bat has a little bit more, maybe around 2 million, but these are bats that love the caves, and so they love to hide out in the caves.

Certainly several of the bat species in Illinois love to hang out in the caves.

But we try to protect them, try to close off those caves to visitors, especially when they're hibernating and things like that.

But not all bats kind of hang out in those caves or old mines, even.

Some love to be just kind of hanging out on their own, like a red bat here, and I have a sample of him.

Red bat, beautiful red auburn color.

He actually likes to hang out in trees, so sometimes if you look under little barks or shingles in the tree, you might find a little red bat hanging around in the tree there.

Kelly: Is that the full size of the bat there?

Jennifer: This is full-size.

Kelly: They're little.

I've seen moths about that size.

Jennifer: Yeah.

Yeah, many of our bats are pretty much on the smaller side, although we'll get some that are a little bit larger.

Kelly: I'm going to have you hold that up just again.

So you said this is full-sized for this bat.

They like to hang out in trees, and they are aplenty in Illinois?

Jennifer: Yes.

We have lots of red bats hanging around here.

Yeah.

Kelly: You talked about the two bats that were federally on the endangered list.

There are some reasons why the bat population has slowly dwindled, whether it's ... Well, I'll let you talk about it, but it could be disease.

It could be habitat.

It could be environmental.

It could be, well, frankly, our fault.

Jennifer: Yes.

Yeah.

Unfortunately ... and I kind of mentioned, with so many bats hibernating in caves, so they close those off to the public so we don't disturb their cycles, we don't disturb their habitat, especially during hibernation.

They go into that deep sleep, and any interruption to that sleep causes their metabolism to kick in and just pushes them off their schedule, and that can really be detrimental to them.

But any other habitat loss .

..

So red bat with trees.

So if we don't have a lot of woodlands around, they're susceptible to that habitat loss, but also disease as well.

There's something called white nose syndrome, and it's actually a disease.

It's a fungus, and you can kind of see on their noses here, which, hence its name, white nose syndrome.

It happens in caves.

So it's a bacteria that spreads, and because they live in a colony or in a group, it easily spreads from bat to bat to bat.

So, again, that's why we're trying to protect their habitats, close them off from the public, because if you think about spores and fungus, even with people, it's easily spread.

So if we're near bats, it can get on our clothes and spread if we go into caves and things like that.

So we can actually carry it.

We can't get it, but we can certainly spread the spores, just like fungus around here.

Not harmful to humans, but we can certainly help carry it, yes.

Kelly: Somebody may be out there watching, saying, "Bats give me the creeps."

Jennifer: Yep.

Kelly: "Why do we care about bats?"

But let's talk about the positive things that bats bring to our environment.

Yeah, they're a little bit creepy, and there are things such as vampire bats out there - not in Illinois - but there are good things.

There are benefits to bats.

Jennifer: Absolutely.

They do have that kind of creepiness factor.

I get it.

They're not the prettiest animal around, or the cutest, by any means.

People hear "vampire bat" and think, "Is it going to turn into Dracula?"

Right?

Kelly: Right.

Jennifer: We've ingrained that in there.

It's not going to turn into Dracula.

They do drink blood.

That is a real thing, but they don't kill the animal.

They just bite maybe livestock - goats, cows, things like that - and they'll drink about maybe two tablespoons of blood.

But they live in Mexico, and their populations are actually doing well because we have so much livestock and farm animals down there.

But they're not in Illinois, so don't worry.

I know.

It still makes us uneasy, right?

An animal that drinks blood.

But here in Illinois, all of our bats are insectivores, so they feed entirely on insects.

So if you dislike the mosquitoes - and there's plenty of them right now - you need to be a fan of bats, because these little guys .

.. Kelly: They'll eat thousands of ... Jennifer: They'll eat thousands.

Even this little guy right here, he will feed on thousands of mosquitoes, other bugs, moths, beetles per night.

So think about, if you have a nice colony of bats around, how many insects they're going to feed off of.

Kelly: Just that little guy.

Jennifer: Yeah.

Kelly: Now we're getting a picture of that, and this is a little brown bat?

Is that ... Jennifer: Yeah.

Kelly: They'll feed on, I don't know, like you said, thousands of ... Jennifer: Yep, thousands per night.

Yeah, exactly.

Sometimes bigger bats per hours.

So just depends on the type of bat that they have.

Yeah.

Kelly: You and I were talking.

I live out in the country, and each evening, I would take my animals on a walk around the yard before we went in for the night.

The myth is that bats will dive-bomb you, and they like to get in your hair.

Well, I had that experience.

It didn't get in my hair, but they would fly around, and I'd think, "Ooh, they're swooping me.

They're getting really close."

Jennifer: Yeah.

Kelly: You had a very good reason why they do that.

They're not going after me.

Jennifer: No.

Yeah.

Kelly: They're going after ... Jennifer: Yes.

A lot of times when we take walks, even at the nature center, we're stirring up insects, little gnats and mosquitoes, as we walk, and it's not just bats I start to see flying around me.

Even dragonflies, who are carnivores who feed on insects, they start souping around after those insects, and the bats see that as an opportunity for a feast.

All these bugs get stirred up.

So, yeah, they might get really close, but they're really just going after the insects.

That's because they can see, actually, so they're not actually blind.

They can see, but they rely more on their ears.

They use something called echolocation.

So think about sonar in a submarine, right?

You send out the beep, and it beeps back.

That's what bats do, and they use these high-frequency pitches.

It'll bounce off a bug, and that's how they can tell exactly where that insect is.

I can actually play one of their high-pitch frequencies here for you so you can see what they sound like.

[bat sounds] Kelly: That's a bat in the evening time?

Jennifer: Yep.

We can't hear it.

We can sometimes hear certain squeaks from them, but we can't hear the full call that they're making, because it's so high-pitched that our ears can't pick up on it.

But we have some great technology now.

We monitor bats at the nature center.

So there's great little apps you can use to kind of pick it up, and it'll even try to ID the bat for you, which is great for monitoring which species we have.

So one of the calls did pick up an Indiana bat, which is our federally endangered bat.

So that warrants us to do more research to see, do we have an endangered bat?

They like to roost in caves, so where is it roosting?

So we need to help him out and definitely kind of keep an eye on that.

Kelly: Bats are pollinators, too.

I mean, I would have never known that that was part of the makeup of a bat.

We can thank the existence of bananas and mangoes and avocados, really, back to bats.

Jennifer: Absolutely.

In fact, this guy is ... Again, so they live in other places, South America.

This is a flying fox.

These are actually really large bats.

They have a wingspan of about six feet.

So these are big creatures.

This is a pollinator.

They love fruit.

So, yeah, they're hanging around bananas, all that good stuff.

So they help pollinate.

There's certain desert bats that .

..

Think about a hummingbird.

They have really long tongues to go in and help pollinate, sip nectar.

So they are really beneficial, all across the board, whether you have pollinator bats near you or insect batss like we do in Illinois.

Yeah.

Kelly: There's a lot of habitats for bats.

There's caves, as you mentioned.

There's trees, as you mentioned.

Yes, bats do like to get in our homes, in our attics, in our chimneys.

It's cool.

It's dark.

But there are things that you can do to attract bats into your property, and you brought a bat house.

Jennifer: Yes.

Kelly: Explain what that is, how it works, and you may have some information at the Douglas Hart Nature Center for people looking to build one.

Jennifer: We do.

So we always say if you notice bats around, they're roosting somewhere, and so hopefully not in your attic or your house.

That can happen, and there are certainly great resources out there to help you kind of extract them.

Again, because they're protected, we cannot exterminate bats.

So we have to find resources.

There are folks out there that will help you remove them - mist-net them and kind of remove them.

But I always say, with the nesting roosting box here, if you build it, they will come.

They love ... Again, you notice the tight spaces.

The colony, they love to be huddled together.

So people think, "Whoa, can they really fit inside here?"

Well, there could be hundreds of bats in this little box right here.

We love to put it in nice, sunny spaces, and it has to be certain feet off the ground, like 15 feet off the ground.

We have great information at the Nature Center.

So if folks are interested in putting up bat houses, we can certainly get them that information.

Kelly: Well, now we're going to transition a little bit from bats, and somebody may say, "Well how does bats and frogs relate to each other?"

Well, bats sometimes do eat other things besides mosquitoes and insects, and sometimes it's frogs.

Jennifer: It can be frogs.

Yes.

Yeah.

Kelly: You do a lot of presentations on amphibians at the Douglas Hart Nature Center.

You brought us some today.

So let's transition from one to the other species.

Jennifer: Yes.

So we focus on tree frogs.

Again, they are great at eating insects, too.

So some people may find the tree frogs pesky, because if you've ever looked on your patio door or window, sometimes on a summer night, you think, "There's a frog on there.

What's he doing on there?"

Well, he's probably enjoying some great mosquitoes or bugs near your back patio light.

But, again, they're great to have around, because they're going to help take care of those mosquitoes.

But we have four species of tree frogs here in Illinois.

One is more southern Illinois.

So you're really only going to see three.

We have the green tree frog, and then we have the gray tree frog and Cope's tree frog.

The gray tree frog and the Cope's tree frog look identical.

They sound alike.

They look alike.

The only difference is, honestly, a little yellow spot you're going to look for on his inner leg here.

Kelly: This isn't the frog.

I was going to make sure that our viewers at home could see what you brought.

Jennifer: Yes.

Well, this is a tree frog.

This is actually a Cuban tree frog.

It is actually an invasive species, and you may be wondering, "Jen, why did you bring an invasive species?

This isn't the tree frog that lives around here."

One, he's much bigger than our tree frogs around here.

But it is great to use when interpreting and talking about tree frogs, because you can see his features - his great big eyeballs to see insects, his toe pads, which all tree frogs have.

So they have those webbed feet, but they have the sticky toe pads.

So think suction cups.

Kelly: Right.

Jennifer: A cool fact about tree frogs is they have mucus pores on the bottom of their toe pads.

So think about when you have a suction cup, maybe a sun catcher hanging on your patio door.

After a while, it might lose its grip.

It might get dirty, dusty, and it might fall.

Well, a tree frog can actually release mucus or slime, and it'll clean his toe pads of dust and dirt so he can kind of restick himself.

So it's a very cool quality that he has.

But this guy, the Cuban tree frog, someone had called us and said, "We have a tree frog as a pet.

We don't want him anymore."

Well, this Cuban tree frog is an invasive species of Florida.

He's from Cuba, Bahamas, Cayman Islands.

Kelly: This little guy here?

Jennifer: This one.

Yep.

He became a nuisance in Florida, and so we thought, "No, no, no, we don't want you to release him into the wild, because we don't want a problem here in Illinois."

So we decided we could use it and talk about thinking about pets that you might have that are typically a wild pet - so always thinking twice about what animals you may decide to have as a pet.

Kelly: A big no-no is letting him out in the natural habitat.

Jennifer: Exactly.

Kelly: We've talked about that a lot on the Paw Report with various species, whether it's snakes or bearded dragons or iguanas.

I mean, anything like that, you just have to make sure.

Do your homework before you get them.

Jennifer: Exactly.

Kelly: Back to our little species of tree frogs around here, they have different colors.

I mean, you talked about that.

Why is color such an important part of the makeup of frogs?

Jennifer: Well, as you mentioned, there are certain other critters that might want to feed on those tree frogs, and so, hence, they live in a tree.

They want to camouflage or blend in the best they can.

So green tree frog is a bright green, perfectly for blending in with those leaves and whatnot, and the gray tree frog, he looks like bark on a tree.

So sometimes you may just go right past him and not even know he's there, unless he's letting out his beautiful vocal call, which you might hear lots of tree frogs in your backyard as well.

But not all of our tree frogs are hanging out in the trees, actually.

We have one species that prefers to be on the ground.

It's a cricket frog, and that's the other guy we brought with us today - really little right now.

They don't get very big anyway, so no bigger than about the size of your thumb.

The cricket frog, I bet you can guess what he sounds like if he calls.

Kelly: Yeah.

That's pretty obvious.

Like a little cricket.

He's kind of wartier than ... Jennifer: Yes.

Kelly: The actual little tree frog was smooth.

Jennifer: Yes.

Kelly: This guy has a different texture about him.

Jennifer: He does.

He definitely has more bumps than you would expect.

When people think of the warts or bumps, you think of toads, and that's a way to tell the difference.

But cricket frog is one that definitely has a little more bumps.

He's not quite as smooth as the other tree frogs.

He's still in the tree frog family, and it's all based on those toe pads that he has.

It's how they group them together.

But he's going to be near your ponds and streams, but he's still looking for nice bugs to eat - those mosquitoes, earthworms, beetles, all that, even this little guy right here.

Kelly: What are the lifespans of frogs?

Some people do have them as pets.

Jennifer: Yes.

Kelly: So they can sometimes outlive your dogs and cats that you have inside.

Jennifer: Yeah.

So if you're going to have them in captivity, they can live several years - in fact, maybe 10, 15 years.

But out in the wild, where they probably are best adapted, they have a lifespan of maybe three to five years, so three on the low side.

But, again, in captivity, they might carry on a few extra years, because they're probably well-fed by their owners.

They don't have to worry about predators, and they have to fend for themselves out in the wild.

So yeah.

Kelly: We didn't talk about it, and I think when I ask this question, you can answer it for both bats and frogs.

What if humans have to handle them?

"There's a bat in my house, and I tried to get it out myself."

If I have a child or a youngster running around the yard and they see a frog and they want to pick it up, both do carry some sort of diseases.

I mean, I know bats do.

Jennifer: Yes.

So, as with any wild animal, especially with the bats being mammals, mammals have a risk of carrying rabies.

So any mammal could have the chance of carrying rabies, and it doesn't matter what animal it is.

I always caution folks, even if it's a dog, even if it has an owner, if it has a mouth, it has a chance to bite.

That's what I always caution people.

If you don't know the animal, might want to be wary around it.

Even with frogs, now, they're not going to bite you, but they have other ways.

I mentioned the mucus ... Kelly: Secretions.

Jennifer: ... they can secrete on you, and for some people, it might actually irritate their skin.

We certainly promote catching frogs.

I mean, that's kind of the fun of exploring nature, but we can actually do more harm to frogs based on what's on our skin - lotions and bug spray.

If we were to handle frogs and whatnot, their skin is so sensitive, we can transfer things to them.

They breathe through that skin, which makes them kind of that indicator species.

So a lot of scientists will monitor amphibians, like frogs.

It tells a lot about the environmental conditions.

So think about bacteria, chemicals, pollutants in the air.

That's why amphibian populations, they are declining.

Some species have dropped by 50%.

That's a lot.

Kelly: That's considerable.

Jennifer: Yes, and so we think it's because, A, habitat loss, just like with the bats, but also because their skin is so sensitive to the pollutants.

Think about how many more vehicles are on the road, and industries ...

They're just more sensitive to it than other animals.

Kelly: At Douglas Hart, you're like the top-notch ambassadors for environment and species, and you have a lot of applications online for people to get involved in, one of which was the app that you brought with you today.

Jennifer: Yes.

Kelly: Talk about how interactive your facility is with the public and if they have questions out there about frogs or "What's in my yard?"

or "What sound am I hearing?

", how do you help those out there with those questions?

Jennifer: Yeah, we certainly try to offer public programs on different animals, but, honestly, we encourage them to email or call, because if they see a bird in their backyard that they're curious about, finding a baby animal, not sure what to do with it, bats, if they even have bats, they find droppings, they're not sure if it's a bat, we have all these great staff that can certainly help field those questions.

But if they want to get involved, we are really gearing up our citizen science program.

So if they're into butterflies, we have butterfly monitoring.

We have the bat monitoring.

So they can take walks with us, use the technology to hear the calls.

Even there's dragonflies.

There's frog monitoring.

So we're really gearing up really big in 2020 with ways that people can get involved with the staff to kind of monitor what's out there.

Kelly: What is the frog monitoring?

You mentioned that.

Is that just a way for folks, if they have property around their place, they can track and see what they have?

Is that what most of the monitoring involves?

Because somebody may say, "I'm not an expert.

I don't know what to do."

Is it a matter of just taking your phone and snapping some pictures, and how does it work?

Jennifer: It is.

There's a great app that I recommend for beginners.

It's called iNaturalist, and we even use it with school groups.

So, because technology is becoming more prevalent in the schools, we've tried to integrate it into the outdoor programming, and it's an application where the kids or adults can take pictures, and the app will help you ID it.

You put the location down.

You can see who else has seen this animal in the area.

It's a global research, though.

So you're connected to scientists all around the world, and you can be a part of that.

So even if you want to do it from your backyard, that's a great app that you can use on your phone or tablet.

Yeah.

Kelly: As we wrap up our discussion here, we've got a couple of minutes.

What's the best advice you can tell to people to calm their fears about the critters that we've talked about today, specifically baths?

Because I had lunch with a friend today, and she said, "I had a bat in my house, and it's scary.

I slept with my covers over my head.

I didn't want to get out of bed, because I was so worried about it."

What can you say as a mouthpiece, as an ambassador for these guys?

Jennifer: Yeah.

I mean, I get it.

Your house is kind of your domain, so you would like the critters to stay outside.

But, again, I feel like there's so many resources, people out there, that can help find the bats, find the problem.

Even the smallest little crack, bats can kind of enter houses and attics and things like that.

There, again, there's so many resources to help them remove the bat safely so they can find a new home and you can sleep peacefully.

So I feel like, again, there's a lot of good resources.

Even on our website, dhnature.org, we have a frequently asked question page where we list all sorts of wildlife resources for folks.

Kelly:Excellent.

As you said, that great resource is the Douglas Hart Nature Center.

Well, Jennifer Tariq, thank you so much for joining us for this episode of the Paw Report.

There's always some great information and some neat stuff, specifically today on bats and tree frogs.

Thank you for joining us.

Jennifer:Thank you.

Kelly:Thank you for joining us for this episode of the Paw Report.

I'm your host, Kelly Goodwin.

Until next time.

We'll see you then.

If you're a veterinarian, trainer, groomer, specialist, rescue organization, or shelter that would like to partner with the Paw Report by providing expert guests for the show, please contact us by emailing weiu@weiu.net, or call 217-581-5956.

If you have a topic you'd like to see on the show or questions for our experts, contact us with those, too.

Rob: Dave's Decorating Center is a proud supporter of the Paw Report on WEIU.

Dave's Decorating Center features the Mohawk Smartstrand Silk Forever Clean carpet.

Dave's Decorating Center, authorized Mohawk color center in Charleston.

Rameen: The Paw Report on WEIU is supported by Rural King, America's farm and home store, livestock feed, farm equipment, pet supplies and more.

You can find your store and more information regarding Rural King at ruralking.com.

Katelyn: Fetchers Pet Supply on the north side of the Charleston square.

Serving the EIU community since 1991.

Fetchers welcomes all pets on a leash.

Is open seven days a week and offers made in the USA food.

Pets supplies for dogs, cats, reptiles, and fish.

Fetchers Pets Supply in Charleston.

Rameen: Additional support for The Paw Report on WEIU, is brought to you by viewers like you.

Thank you.

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