Welcome to the Arkansas Wildlife Podcast, the official podcast of the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission.

We are talking hunting, fishing and conservation with engaging guests and in-depth discussions with game and fish staff.

It's Arkansas Wildlife, the podcast for all things outdoors in the natural state.

Welcome to the Arkansas Wildlife Podcast.

Thanks for tuning in to another episode of this award winning Arkansas Game and Fish Commission podcast.

I'm Trey Reed, assistant chief in our communications division at Arkansas Game and Fish, and get to host this podcast as part of those duties.

And we've got another good one for you today.

Got an old friend here, Allison Fowler from our wildlife management Division.

She's an assistant chief in wildlife management.

And welcome back.

Allison, how are you?

I'm great.

Thanks for having me back.

Well, you were on, talking about wildlife diversity in the state, and we're kind of going to sort of continue that conversation a little bit today, and I. One of the things you and I were talking about before we came on here was that, you know, when people think about Arkansas game and fish, they think about, you know, deer hunting and hunting and bass fishing and crappie fishing and all these critters that we pursue with a rod or a rifle or a shotgun or a bow or whatever the case may be.

But I think it gets lost that we're responsible for all the fish and wildlife in Arkansas.

And I'll let you kind of jump in there and sort of explain what that's like, because it kind of in your bailiwick and wildlife management, I mean, like there's a lot more animals and fish out there that we don't hunt and fish for than we do.

That's right.

It's 99% of our wildlife in the state.

We are hunter fish, but we are responsible.

You know, the the game of fish is what we call the trust agency for those species.

So we're responsible for conservation of the species until it gets federally listed.

And then it becomes a responsibility of the Fish and Wildlife Service.

But amendment 35, which created Arkansas Game of fish, basically said all wildlife, which would include everything, even insects.

Yeah.

From bees up to, elk.

Right.

All the birds.

Well, what does that what does that look like?

I mean, and I know that's a very complex question.

Probably could spend the entire podcast answering it, but what does management of those non-game species look like from an agency perspective?

I mean, how would we how could we sort of enlighten the public on, like, what kind of things are we doing out there that that affect those?

Right.

So for, for most are what we call our taxa, which would be our groups of species, our birds, mammals, fish, crayfish, mussels, amphibians and reptiles.

We have a dedicated staff person to, to handle those species.

And so they'll be doing a variety of things.

They'll be doing monitoring.

They'll be doing research projects, just keeping up with status of those species.

And for some of those groups, it's quite a lot of species.

There's a lot, you know, there's hundreds of species of fish that you do with, right.

You know, and I think of somebody like Kendall Moles, our malacologist, that's a mussel biologist, if you're unfamiliar with the term, but how many species of endangered or threatened mussels do we have in Arkansas?

Oh, gosh, you're going to put me on this.

I know, I'm sorry.

Said, it's about being a lot.

There are a lot of the most of our endangered species are most of our endangered species are aquatic snakes ones.

And a lot of those are mussels.

We have 3233 endangered species in Arkansas total.

So and like a bunch of those are mussels, right?

A bunch of them are mussels.

So I think about like what, what Kendall's job looks like I mean, and you know, he's going underwater and diving.

Yeah.

And surveys and, and he gets to do cool things like propagation.

So trying to as you say, that's kind of a relatively new thing.

He's been propagating some different mussel species.

Right.

So a lot of the species that are listed are even the species that are in decline, because, you know, there's a lot of species that aren't listed that are trending, their populations are trending downward.

Yeah.

And so those are species that he gives a lot of attention to, to try to keep them from going on, you know, the federal list.

And so, you know, collecting locating collecting those babies.

I think okay.

Actually, I'm going to mess that up, talk Kindle talk and I can't do that.

But yeah, basically growing baby mussels to put back into, systems to enhance populations.

Yeah.

No, we did some, spend some time with Kendall up in northwest Arkansas as we've been documenting the War Eagle Creek restoration project, and there's a lot of moving parts to that.

You know, America the Beautiful grant.

Yeah.

Was which was instrumental in helping, you know, fund some of some of that work, but, like actually collecting mussel species and then, like, and then doing some propagation and then putting them back, and it's just there's a lot and then and again, that's just mussels.

Like how many we what, 400 plus species of birds I mean ish.

Yeah.

We're around in the state.

Yeah.

And then if you think about insects and invertebrates I mean you're talking about at a couple of thousand at least plants the same way we're not responsible for plants, but we like to try to, you know, assist and consider that when we're doing habitat, the realistic approach to managing ecosystems, it all comes into play.

Right, right.

Well you've kind of sort of talked around the edges of it talking about these species that, you know, we might be concerned about, but they're not at that point of being listed as threatened or endangered federally under the Endangered Species Act.

But we've got with the Arkansas Wildlife Action Plan, which is kind of a document, a sort of a, would you describe it as sort of a guiding document that like the whole purpose of that is to keep those species from ending up on the list, right?

That's right.

Yeah.

As I tell us, like how that works.

So we're actually in the throes of revising that plan now.

It's actually due to the service tomorrow or the next day or excuse me for.

Oh wow.

So by the time you hear this, we will have already come.

Yeah.

Hopefully.

Right.

Okay.

Yeah.

So basically, yeah, it's each state a blueprint for conservation of what we call species of greatest conservation need.

So those species that we know are declining to the point where they need some sort of intervention before they could become listed, or it could also be species that we know we have in the state, but we don't know much about those species.

We need to learn more so we can figure out what we need to do.

Nobody's ever done a lot of research or whatever on those.

How right.

How many species of greatest conservation need do we have in this?

This, you know, revised, updated Arkansas Wildlife Action Plans, 520 species.

Yeah.

Wow.

So those are that's 520 species that we have some concerns about for one reason or another, either.

Like, maybe we don't know enough about them to to effectively manage them, probably as robustly as we need or we know enough to say, hey, they're they're their populations are trending downward or there's a threat, habitat threat or whatever.

Is that kind of am I am I that's no, that's absolutely right.

Good job.

Well so so then what do we do Alice.

And what do we do?

We go okay, you've got the you've got this dog.

And I don't mean of I, I wasn't trying to be funny, but like what what how does that translate into action or what is that action.

What does it look like.

Well, it's it's a lot of things.

And, you know, for a lot of species, it's habitat.

Habitat, degradation, habitat loss, habitat fragmentation is the threat for, for a lot of those species that we're working on, whether it's aquatic or terrestrial.

So it's it's working on our own properties.

It's working, you know, with our partners on their properties, kind of all been on the same page with what management activities are working, what are their habitats need to look like?

And it's working on private lands too, since the majority of Arkansas is private lands, and it's figuring out how to get private landowners engaged in working on their properties as well.

Yeah, it was kind of it was funny you said we we talked all the time.

About 90% of Arkansas was privately owned.

And then you throw out another 90% figure right off the top at 90% of the species in Arkansas or not.

That's right.

This is that we hunt and fish for.

What would you point to is like maybe some examples of like some maybe higher profile species or things we've done some work on in the last, you know, decade or longer doesn't matter.

But like just to kind of paint a picture for like the hunter or angler that's listed out there and it's like, what do you mean, what do you do?

You know, what?

Or what are some species that, that, that you might point to some where we've had some success or devoted resources to, to those species?

Yeah.

It's a, it's a pretty good variety.

You know, we, we touch a lot of things.

A couple of examples that come to mind, which I think we've done some articles about, you know, eastern collared lizard, which is Arkansas's largest lizard that likes glade and woodland, mountain roots, mountain boomers, I call them.

They're actually really cool.

Yeah.

We've we've put a lot of effort.

That's been a priority for the last for the last many years.

The species itself and doing some again, some propagation works are trying to augment population.

Yeah.

We did some stuff with the little rock.

Right.

We actually some captive reared, eastern collared lizards.

Yeah.

They produce some juveniles for us.

And those got reintroduced to some of our Glades systems.

And I believe those, those animals are doing still doing pretty well.

You mentioned habitat being.

And look, we talk about it all the time on this podcast and elsewhere in our magazine and our videos, like when we talk about fish and wildlife management, we're really talking about habitat management in most cases.

But you talk the Glades are very important for eastern coast lizards.

I know that's been a huge focus of our wildlife management division, as well as private lands, work with, with with landowners like talk a little bit about Glades.

I mean, because there's such a kind of a cool, I just don't know if enough people know about what what a Glade is for.

Well, they've probably seen one that they live in the Ozarks or the Lodge at all.

So it's basically an area with really thin soil, a lot of exposed rock.

A lot of those glades that we have now are covered up in the eastern red cedar, because they don't have fire on them.

Okay.

So they're they're very fire dependent ecosystems.

And they kind of occur, you know, on these ridge tops or south slopes in the Ozarks and watch tors, and they occur kind of in a dynamic fluctuation with woodlands and forests.

So when you get more fire on the landscape, they'll be more open.

And then they kind of close and open, as you know, okay.

Fire comes in and out of those systems.

And the eastern collared lizards love them.

Right.

They need those.

Yeah.

They they will have their little territories and, you know, defend those from from other males and, you know, find their mates and okay.

Yeah.

Cool.

Well so talking to eastern collared lizards, a great example.

You know, when you talk to insects, I want to jump into pollinators, because there's been a lot I mean, in the even in the, you know, mass media and popular media over the last ten years, especially, a lot of talk about, you know, the plight of, of our bees and our pollinators.

And we've heard a lot about monarch butterflies lately, all part of that, Arkansas Wildlife Action Plan two, right?

That's right.

Yeah.

We've added several species of bees this round and a few other a few other things.

And monarch still on the list.

It's one that we're keeping an eye on.

So, I mean, this is going to sound like a dumb question, but why are pollinators so important?

Oh, goodness.

Yeah.

And when you start digging into it, you're like hang.

You know, that's it's crazy to think about, how much we don't think about where our food comes from.

That's why I ask the question.

Yeah, yeah.

So I kind of explain it to people, as you know, everything's part of a system.

And, you know, when you were in third or fourth grade, you learned about the food web or you had like the little pyramid, you know, at the bottom was plants and probably bugs.

And then it went up to like, you know, at the top was maybe a wolf or something like that.

Sure.

But if you think about, you know, what other animals do, like turkeys and quail or even deer and the things that they need, it all comes back to plants, which 75% of our plants require pollination, so they need some critter helping them reproduce.

And then, you know, those other species rely on bugs, right?

So like the system starts building.

Sure.

But if you think about also where our food comes from, a lot of the crops that we rely on require pollination.

So it's, they're actually I would say they're pretty critical component foundational components, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, how many, I want to put you on the spot.

You have the our the action plan in front of me.

Like how many, like, insect species are like in are we worried or are in the greatest conservation ballpark maybe a ballpark?

Probably.

Gosh, I was just looking at this list earlier this morning.

It's got to be 50, 75 at least.

Yeah.

What what what kind of things are we doing to help pollinators?

So I think as an agency, as the state agency or is working with landowners and partners what's going on?

Yeah, I mean, the the biggest thing again, is habitat promoting native habitats, promoting native plants.

Okay.

That's one big thing.

You know, a lot of people may not have acreage.

They may not have land that they can work on.

But they might have a garden where they can put some native plants.

That can be, you know, a big deal to, to local pollinators.

Another big thing would be, you know, reducing pesticide use around your house, if you can.

I know it's hard not to treat those fire ant mounds sometimes.

Yeah.

But.

Or if you live in the delta and there's a bunch of rice fields around, there's a lot of mosquitoes and.

Yeah, and a lot of the cities, you know, they'll do kind of those big mosquito sprays.

And it's understandable.

But those things are not discriminate.

So they kill they kill every insect.

So that's just one thing, you know, if you have an opportunity to reduce that in the yard, that can help a lot.

There's been a big push lately it seems like for you talked about you know, we have like our education as a schoolyard habitat program, butterfly gardens.

But even like working with partners like Audubon and others, like really a push to get people to maybe do some different things with their landscaping.

I mean, even if you got like a corner of your yard where you can like that, that like, you know, it's a brush pile or whatever, but, I mean, there's things you can do that like even on a small scale that can help, right?

Yeah.

There's things that you could actually, if you could stop doing, like you could stop mowing parts of your yard and just let it go, I went mad, I yeah, I, my neighbors may not like it, but, I do tell people though, like, why is your grass like.

Because that's what that's what.

That's the way it's supposed to be, really.

I mean, it, you know, when it kind of comes down to what you can handle esthetically because we've for some reason, like the suburban like mowed green yard is become like the status symbol in America, you know, so it's kind of hard to convince people to let some of that go.

But, you know, we've did that at my house.

Luckily, I don't live in a subdivision.

I live in the country, so I have a lot of freedom.

Sure, sure.

And we did that.

And it's just amazing the plants that have that come in and I see new plants come in every year that are just they're waiting, you know, the seeds have been there, you know, waiting to come up.

It's funny you mentioned that.

Like, I had to put in a new sewer line a few years ago.

And of course, they've got to dig the old one up and bury the new and and to this day, Alison, I mean, it's like, been like at least four years now, but that stretch where they disturb that soil and turn it up, I've got all these awesome native plants that grow up there and it's like, so I mean, yeah, I guess what I'm saying is, like, if you've got I live in the city, but I've got like corners of my yard that are like a little wilder because it's like, you know, it's a fence border or underneath a power line right away.

It makes sense.

It's like, well, why not let that kind of go wild?

I mean, truly, you know, and, and create good habitat for some of the smaller critters that we don't think about that.

All right.

Yeah, you could do that if you have that opportunity.

Some neighborhoods are harder than other.

You're sure you could also maybe mow less like if you have to mow your yard, like let it go for maybe a week longer than you usually do, especially in the spring.

I've noticed, you know, in that early spring when the first bees and butterflies come out, there's not a ton on the landscape, especially in, you know, suburbia or urban areas.

But in your yard you'll notice a lot of times clovers.

And the hand bit was a little purple flowers.

Yeah.

The spring beauties, those kind of come up first and those are really attractive to bees and butterflies.

And there has been studies where if you mow, say, every two weeks instead of every one week, you'll have a higher diversity of bees.

So it can be helpful when even if you got a mow, I mean, you could create like a pollinator garden, like, you know, just, which I mean, pretty flowers.

I mean, you might, you know, they're they're attractive and they provide a good, habitat benefit for some of those critters.

That's right.

Is a favorite part of my house is my you, my front porch next to my native flower.

So you've got a native flower garden.

Like, what are some species of plants that you have in there?

May be that, like folks might have heard of, I think some really good species that are, that I've found are pretty easy to care for and that attract a lot of things would be purple coneflower.

Yeah, yeah.

Rattlesnake master, any of the, like you dress to the blazing stars as nice, really pretty purple flowers.

Yeah, yeah.

It's just it's just fun to see the different things that will come visit.

Sure.

Oh, I mean, and like you said, those are, they're they're attractive.

I mean, it's like you're it is a flower garden.

It's just I would you hit on something else there.

I wanted to kind of seize on these native plants we're talking about actually perform a lot better than the stuff like that.

You're going to buy in a big box store, or that was brought in from Asia or South America or whatever anyway.

Right?

I mean, there's there's a lot of reasons to go native, but that's one of them, you know, a lot of the stuff that you buy, the big box store will be treated with something called neonicotinoids, which is a type of pesticide that can be harmful, to bees, even even after, you know, it lasts a while.

Gotcha.

So, so by native plants is good.

They are more adapted to our climates.

That's the biggest thing.

So it's a little less maintenance.

You know, we've been through a pretty good dry spell here the last couple of months, but my plants are doing fairly well considering I've had to water him once or twice, but it's not as intensive as it might be with some other.

It's not like running the sprinkler every morning on the yeah, that perfectly manicured lawn that a lot of people do.

Right?

I'm not I'm not throwing shade.

It's pretty lawn again like you said some it you know.

Yeah.

And some some neighborhoods if you don't cut the grass they'll they'll get on to you.

And that's right.

You have to follow those rules.

That's right.

You you told me about something a number of years ago and always like to bring this up, because I never really thought about what wetland plants can provide.

You talking about?

We've got, ten, 11,000 acres of moist soil units that we manage.

Basically, we're farming various plants, weeds to create duck food and other migratory bird food, through, throughout the wintering period as they come through in other, other time, not just the wintering period, but associate ducks with the wintering period, obviously.

But you, you you you pointed out to me that like, if you look out across those wetlands like a moist soil unit and it's like all these smart weeds and these other, you're like all those flowers and food for pollinators, you know, I mean, I just kind of talk about, like, the importance of some of those wetland plants that a lot of people don't, I don't think associate with, like as pollinator habitat.

Right.

I don't think definitely that's not what comes to mind when you when you look out across there, you're looking for those bigger things like ducks.

Yeah.

But yeah, they, they definitely get used by, by bees.

And, and I've heard a lot had a lot of reports when we were doing our Monarch Citizen science project and asking folks to report their monarch sightings.

I got several reports from duck clubs or from our own staff who were working on more soil units.

And, you know, the timing of the smart weed flowering kind of coincided with that big push for fall migration for monarchs.

And they would have hundreds upon hundreds using those units.

One thing we haven't really touched on, I think we'd be remiss if we don't talk about it before we before we wrap this thing up, Allison, is that we're talking about all these non-game species, a species of greatest conservation need.

Although there are some game species, like northern bobwhite, that are a species of greatest conservation need.

But I think a lot of people don't realize that there's like, I think a certain I don't think it's less now, but there is a there's a sector of maybe our constituency, the public out there like, well, you're the game and fish.

You're supposed to be, you know, spending money on, stuff that is better for deer and ducks and turkeys and crappie and bass and on down the line.

But all of this stuff we're doing for these 90% of animals that aren't game, species is also good for game species, right?

Absolutely.

I don't think we're ever going to stop doing what we're doing for for all those big critters, right?

That's our bread and butter.

But I think that we can do our conservation in a way that it's benefiting everything.

And that's really our focus is, is putting those native habitats back and and benefiting all the wildlife that that use those habitats.

And it kind of works the other way, too.

I mean, a project like where we maybe, thin a timber stand, allow more sunlight to hit the ground in forested areas that we own or manage or, on down the line.

But there's things that are that we're maybe doing to, you know, increase, food sources and improve habitat for whitetail deer.

Or, again, the more soil management for waterfowl, we're doing it maybe like maybe that's like, okay, we're doing it for the for the mallards in the, in the bucks.

And but it's also again it's good for those critters too.

Right, right.

Trying to benefit as many things as you can.

And it's not always going to work out 100%.

But for the most part, I mean, that's the best we can do for sure.

How would you sort of, how would you sort of summarize the, the, the approach to non-game wildlife management here at Arkansas Game and Fish summarize the approach.

So again, habitat I mean I think that really is the basis for a lot of it.

And on top of that it's trying to gain an understanding of what species we have and what their status is and what we need to do to to keep them from further declines, as in general, that's that's what you know.

And I again, I think it's we're inside of this, you know, and it's a little closer.

And so it's really easy to kind of overlook things.

I just want to try to try to paint a picture here, especially for, you know, maybe a casual listener that doesn't understand or doesn't know, maybe isn't as familiar with the work we do in these other areas outside of the box and ducks.

Well, it's all fascinating stuff.

And, really appreciate all the work you and your crew over in wildlife management do.

And working with our partners to, to take care of all the wildlife in the state.

Alison Fowler, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast.

Anything you want to throw in before we wrap things up now?

I think that was excellent.

All right.

Well, thank you so much, Alison, for Alison Fowler, I'm Trey Reed I'll talk to you next time on the Arkansas Wildlife Podcast.