In the past, we've taken you snorkeling at Lake Degray and also at Lake Ouachita on this outing.

We're going to check out Bull Shoals Lake in North Arkansas.

The undersea world of Jacques dove ish continues.

Stop.

Murky.

Today.

At a big rain this morning and.

Usually they say if you could see 2530 feet.

Today it's uh I don't know maybe check fee but still pretty good for a like.

Normally folks don't think of landlocked arkansa as a place to go snorkeling but truth is the many Rockline Lakes with clear water do provide wonderful opportunities for some fine snorkeling where you can see lots of colorful marine life and experience, the natural state in quite a unique way.

Of the several state parks that offer snorkeling outings, the best part is no experience is necessary.

That's why you know typically a day will take 5 to 10 people to hopefully some calm water showing the gear show him?

How to you know how to use the gear how to put the gear on an going to do a little test and some like waist deep water and then we try to bring him to some of these beautiful rocky points, where there's ledges where little fish brim and small mouth and.

Some of the little smaller fish and sometimes you'll see some of the big, big fish.

You know, and give him a chance to see these beautiful outcroppings and in a different species of fish that we have so you know, I mean, snorkeling is it's pretty easy.

So I mean, once they we go through I wouldn't call it technical.

But once we go through the ropes with them and they catch on so quick an assisted joy.

To be able to see what's underneath the water and breathe, so everybody seems to enjoy it.

It's been real successful program.

Yeah, people think well, we know what can you see you know in a Lake in Arkansas, they think well if I want to go to the Caribbean I can see it.

But like you said there's plenty of things.

People probably are surprised at what they see exactly and the visibility like you said.

I mean today.

We've had all this rain so today was not perfect, but 2025 feet visibility is not unusual for this like in a few years ago, it was even.

Greater 3035 feet you know, we've been through some major floods, which have kind of cleared the shoreline for us, but so visibility at 20 feet were happy with that and it's it's beautiful, and people just are amazed at how pretty it is.

Honestly, like I thought you know it's gonna be boring.

You know just come out here and see nothing but we actually came out here and there was quite a few got to see a bunch of perch and just a bunch of different rocks that I didn't expect to see it all.

So do you think this is something they will try again and again?

Yeah, definitely really enjoyable I love you.

Now you know where the fish are yes.

Yes, now, I know where to find the fish when I can't find them.

The snorkeling adventure at Bull Shoals White River State Park is all thanks to Chuck Bermas.

I started volunteering for the State Park in 2006, when I retired down here from Toledo.

OH.

And this Lake is just so beautiful and I've been a scuba diver.

Most of my life.

So I knew that this Lake was something that people ought to see so I asked the State Park if they would be interested in may be developing some type of a program like that, and they were very receptive to doing that and just a great organization to volunteer for, and so we made proposals I worked with R. Interpreter came up with a budget and got the money for the next year and off.

We went and we've been doing this now, I guess this is our 3rd year.

And it's been very successful.

And I guess people catch on pretty quick.

It is really it's surprising how how they do an course the younger they are the quicker.

They are they seem to really pick it up very quickly and even folks that aren't good swimmers are of that ever because we give him the full vest.

They feel very safe.

We make sure that we give him the proper training beforehand so they feel comfortable and I haven't had anyone who regretted taking this these trips and you provide this wonderful equipment.

The Mass, the snorkels and.

Those things are something else.

It's like having your own frog feeds the short specially designed I guess for snorkeling.

It is and the vest that we use are not really snorkeling.

This There are more for boating and that sort of stuff but we have to do that to give non swimmers as security of feeling safe with it.

So if this was a program that was for more accomplished swimmers.

We would use different equipment.

But this way.

Everyone can participate, whether they're younger old doesn't make any difference so.

We've been very happy with the way it's worked out.

We hadn't been much.

He just done in the pool and around the area of like swimming areas.

This is new.

So what do you think of this experience here on Bull Shoals Lake it was awesome awesome.

What did you see?

Lots of fish.

We were holding her breath all week, hoping that the turn.

The weather would clear up for us 'cause that was one of the things we were.

You know this is our main event for the week.

So we want to come back and probably do it again next year.

When you think of it.

I love it.

I like watching all the pretty fish is in the rocks and stuff.

Yeah, it's just amazing that the light is so clear down where we are.

I mean, you could put your hand and you can't see 3 inches in the water is just so dirt in.

It's just like when we come here.

It's like that.

This is so nice.

So clear you can see so much and like I said the ledges.

The fish the just the life underneath water.

It's just amazing what you see down there and you don't realize from just women are voting to get in there and look at it.

Will definitely be back?

So for those of you who thought snorkeling in Arkansa.

Well, it just may open a whole new adventure for you, that you can enjoy the rest of your life take it from under like World of Jacques Dobish.

If there ever was the perfect dwelling for Batman.

This would be it.

The Beckum Creek Cave House located West of Parthenon.

Originally built as a bomb shelter Haven by the founder of Celestial Seasonings Tea Company.

This 5800 square foot cave now rents has a lodge with natural living cave walls and ceilings.

Surrounding the living area besides the 5 bedrooms and 5 baths.

There's also a dining area a game room and a Gourmet Island Kitchen.

All in all, not too shabby of a hideout for one of the original Doomsday Preppers.

Or now that you seen the luxurious and Tame side of Bacon Creek Cave.

Through this door is the wild portion of this interesting cavern.

I've got my cave hunters with me, so let's go.

We teamed up with The Nature Conservancy.

Ann members of the Little Rock.

Grotto and it didn't take long before we were able to observe a few bats.

Which brings up the white nose syndrome problem with bats?

My nose what it does is it.

Types away there, they use up all their reserves.

There Enerji, so they wake up in the middle of winter and they go out to try and eat and there's nothing to eat so they starve to death and.

That's also another reason why he wanted to Cape Square Meter.

Hibernating you don't wanna do that because if you wake him up.

You know, then they go out and there's nothing to eat in December.

So I was invited to come to this cave probably 10 years ago to help with some of the original mapping and that was one of my first trips in here, but about a year and a half ago.

I came back with some other Cape biologist at work here in the United States and we had a multi day meeting where we were working on some conservation projects that we are trying to implement here in the US but the problem when you get a couple of K biologist together whenever just happy talking and working on computers, so we began to look for things.

And so at that point we found this tiny little animal back in the hallway of the main part of the cave where everybody stays and took that to a specialist and that specialist was able to identify that that was a brand new species, something that had never been discovered before it's a little tiny insect.

It's very small.

It's about a 16th of an inch long and so that got us peaks and got her curiosity going that we wanted to come back and look for additional specimens that are here, so we came back a couple of times.

And began to look for more of these animals and it's taken several trips to where we can find some additional animals so each time that we can.

We continue to find new and new stuff and so this trip today.

Our plan is to look for additional ones of these animals.

We want to try and understand how they're distributed through the cave system.

We want to know what their numbers are if we can find in a problem and then we also wanted to try to characterize the other cave like that.

You have in here as you've seen you know you've got bats that are flying around.

There's several different bat species that are here, there's also a bunch of other invertebrates that you can find millipedes spiders beetles.

We may find some aquatic crustaceans in the cave stream and so that will give us an idea of just how biodiverse this cave system is an arkansa you often see 10 to 12 different.

Cave adapted animals that you find in the caves those are species that you only find in cave systems are typically white they don't have eyes.

A lot of times every antennae and legs are a lot longer, so that they can navigate in the dark and so we're going to be trying to look for those kind of animals.

While we're here today and as a second agenda for what we're doing today?

Is the caving community.

That's here in Arkansa is also going to be finishing up some of the map work.

This here, so we have a team in here that survey and figuring out where these passage go and that's helpful for several reasons.

We can understand better how the water is flowing through their how this cave is developed.

But it also helps biologists like me because I can use that information to track where you find the animals in the cave system?

Do you have any idea of maybe you know how many more passageways are might be does it connect to another K?

Maybe we don't know that's what's the Super exciting thing about being a cave explorers.

You never know what's around the next bend, you go into a belly crawl.

You heard it's painful you pop out after 100 feet and boom.

You're in this giant walking passes with nobody ever know about so our goal today is to go back the cavers are going to go back and try to push into this passage to see if it gets into these domes that they think her bag of it and so they may find some news.

New passage today or they make it back there, and find nothing at all.

It's always it's 5050 on whether you're going to find anything or not, but that's part of the fun part of the exploration.

That New Cave insect species sleigh mentioned earlier is called a springtail.

The column springtails because this group as a whole has a appendage on the underside of its body that it sort of keeps trapped under tension and when something scares.

It let's go in that in flips up sort of like a fleet as it just jumps away and gets away from predators and so, if we happen to see some today, which I hope that we will will tease him a little bit and see if we can get him to spring away from us.

Slay has had a hand in discovering more than 20 cave species new to science.

Fly right here.

So this is a illegal my zipper fly.

Or.

Common name is a red ifly.

These are pretty common in our caves here in the Ozarks you find them most abundantly in the summer time, but you can find them also in the winter.

This isn't Cade species, meaning that if you look at it.

It's got eyes, you can find these sometimes on the surface.

But this particular species has Infinity the caves.

Versus versus being found outside so it's pretty common.

Common animal that you'll find if you look in here, sometimes in the summer time.

These walls will be covered with these events.

What we usually have to do in order to identify these animals to species is we have to collect a few of 'em so I'm collecting this animal and I'm putting it in a little bit of ethanol so that it's preserved and then I will work with taxonomist to figure out what the name is on that.

And so we try to do is just collect 2 or 3 of the animals so that we can confirm the species identity, but then that way.

We have those and those are preserved in perpetuity, and no one ever has to come back and collect anymore.

So it's kind of it's unfortunate that we have to collect a few but because we have to look under a microscope identifier.

We do need a few animals and individuals.

But once we do this.

No one ever has to come back again and collect anymore.

So that little thing right there is a mite so gradually it might.

Those can be a little cave adapted species that's an actual predator.

Feeding on the little tiny springtails.

Here we have a orange harvestman.

These are often found in cave systems.

Here in here in Arkansa.

We actually have one or 2 species that are completely cave adapted if you were to look at him very closely.

They don't have any eyes.

Is it also predator feeding on other little you can see other little mites and things running around with this?

Praise on animals that are attracted to this material here.

Not super common in caves pretty neat when you find 1.

So these are related to the daddy long legs that you find out on the surface.

I got 2 and crawling around there, so this is a nice.

This is a biologist dream right here to spend the day, poking around and stuff like this.

A lot of the biodiversity that you've got that you find in the cave system you know, most people think about the bats in the salamanders and occasional frog, but when we talk about diversity of caves were talking about animals that are the size of this daddy long legs are smaller.

So most of what you find in most of the rare stuff that you find the cave systems is all pretty small step that's why most people don't ever see it?

Plus, they don't like to come and poke around in little old bits of.

Guano and Theses and stuff like that.

So this is a grotto salamander and.

This is quiet and it's marble stayed and you can see that it has gills coming out right behind the back of its head.

And so this animal lives for 3:00 to 4:00 years in this aquatic larval stage and then it metamorphoses into an adult and as you can see it's already losing pigment its eyes off you shut the gills will disappear.

They will crawl out of the water as an adult.

It will hang out in these terrestrial banks here along the sides.

So this is our only.

Salamander in Ozarks that is a cave species.

So for an extreme cave experience, both and lodging and exploring to the Bat Cave, Robin Becker Creek Cave that is.

The Strawberry River in North Central Arkansas, one of the few remaining free flowing rivers in the natural state because of its fine qualities.

The streams upper section has been designated as an arkansa natural and Scenic River.

It contains one of the greatest concentrations of aquatic biodiversity in North America, which is also why the strawberry is protected as a preserve with The Nature Conservancy, whose motto has been.

Saving the last great places on Earth.

One of the ways that we essentially selector rivers in the Ozarks if you look at the Ozarks of broader plateau, including Missouri in Arkansa.

You essentially have sort of an uplifted Dome of rock very old about 300 million years ago, it up within that was.

Or, a fish species wise about the time if you think of from a notional standpoint sharks started to diverse find spread out.

So what happened is you had a very large uplifted Dome of rock that started to a road and cut down deep dissected valleys.

And within those valleys essentially was it was surrounded by an ancient ocean so it's at their isolated from anywhere else.

The Appalachian was too far to sort of genetic connectivity between fish species or terrestrial species and the same thing with the Rockies.

So the Ozarks developed.

Isolated and that's when the reasons you had such a high level of biodiversity, particularly in the water.

So what happened.

Is is at overtime as all those cut down and you got these deeply dissected plateaus.

A lot of those rivers started to developing developing and of themselves their own species diversity.

And if you think about it compared to other areas in the nation, the strawberry itself has about 13% of all the fish species families entire United States and including Canada, North American continent are found in this River is extremely diverse and the reason is because it's very old and it evolved in isolation and that's one of the reasons you had these sort of unique niches.

Both Aquatically and terrestrially where you have these different animals able to come in and occupy in a lot of the other rivers in the Ozarks are the same, so for us.

When we think of it from away.

We Selector River is it important or is it not important.

We base that on using the best available science literature review in bringing in stakeholder groups and partners to figure out where we want to work so we want to work where?

The ecosystem is fairly intact, it has a wide diversity of native species and in most cases, it has something that's unique such as the Strawberry River, Orange Throat Darter, which is different from other daughters.

I think the reason for that is because it essentially evolved in isolation from those other species.

So since it has some genetic difference if you look at it from a habitat standpoint.

The habitats of many daughters are very much the same.

They basically live in fast moving with grifols so if you have Little Rock.

Setter, together, the little spaces.

Interz ticular spaces in between.

Where the power of the water comes around those rocks and moved it creates a little still spaces and that's where those that's where a lot of daughters live?

That's really important for River like this, because when you think of what could destroy this River.

If those spaces fill in with dirt.

The fish can't survive and if that fish is gone.

That's the number one indicator of River health for us, so if that species declining in number or its vanishing.

We know that systemically throughout the watershed.

There's a major problem, so we can use indicator species like that.

Darters muscles to track changes in the River at scale and that's really our approach in the strawberry and our other Ozark rivers.

You can see a lot of diversity of this rivers in the macro invertebrates or the insects that live underneath these rocks.

He will help my here.

Different species of dragonfly.

That's what a lot of these smaller daughters and fish eat off the bottom of the bottom of the food web.

These guys can bite through it all begins.

Fishing is popular on the strawberry, particularly bass fishing.

You got one of the city of fish, you get here now.

Really good joke right smaller.

Don't alert now.

That's a good one good size fish my goodness.

Job rather you.

I like the orange the pool is working out for you to sort of the day, thus far.

By becoming a member of The Nature Conservancy, you can enjoy the adventure of going out on field trips with them.

So we have about 20 field trips, we do per year.

We have a spring season in the fall season and we have about 5000 members in Arkansas.

So we dedicated to them and you know, we won't public awareness and tell your friends and become a member today and you can get a fire and they're really fun and we have our filters on them.

So it's great to become a member of The Nature Conservancy.

Just go to nature.org/arkansas.

And before we leave the Strawberry River, Roger Magnum just couldn't resist testing out a strawberry swimming hole.

Play the radio.

No worries, so float and explore the Strawberry River for yourself, one of the most biodiverse dreams in North America and for more on this destination, plus many of our others, and to order a copy of an episode visit our expanded website at atn.org slash exploring Arkansas and don't forget to like us on our Facebook fan page and will see again the next time for another exciting adventure on exploring Arkansas.