Hello, and welcome to Kentucky Afield.

I'm your host, Chad Miles.

Tonight is our annual Kentucky Wild question and answer show.

Joining me, I have three biologists that are here to answer all of your questions.

Next to me, I have Michaela Rogers, who's been with us before.

You're going to be answering all kinds of questions regarding bats and other animal species.

That's right.

Next we have Monte McGregor, who is our fisheries biologist.

You also study mussels and many other species in the water.

So you've been answering all of our aquatic questions tonight.

And then last, we have a new panelist on board, Mallory Miles, who is a wildlife biologist.

And you're going to be discussing birds.

Michaela, I know we've been out in the field with you in the past, and we've done some shows on bats and and also.

Hellbenders.

What have you been working on here recently?

Yeah, I think the first time we met was the day we went to a cave to do a survey.

So we've actually been out recently.

We've been working on studying Virginia Big Ear bats for the last 5 or 6 years.

And really learning a lot more about the species.

But lately we have been going out.

We've been doing harp trapping at caves that they spend the summer and we're really trying to learn more about, you know, are they reproducing or are they, you know, having young are the young healthy?

Just trying to figure out more about the general conservation of the species.

And we've also been putting some small tags on them, in partnership with the University of Cincinnati, who's researching them with us.

Those are able to kind of ping off of different Bluetooth devices and show us more about their foraging behavior.

So, so you can kind of tell how far they█re travel and what their ranges are?

We are learning so much about how far these bats move.

It was more than we could have imagined in a single night or a few days.

They're moving around a whole lot.

So what's the current status of the Virginia Big Eared bat here in Kentucky, or nationally?

They well, they're federally endangered.

So they have both the federal status and then they're a species of greatest conservation need for us and our state wildlife action plan.

So any information about these guys, we're always looking to understand more so we can protect the areas that they're using and able to raise their young.

Fascinating.

I'm sure we're going to hear a lot more about Virginia, bigger bats and other species throughout the show.

Monte McGregor.

Monte, you've been working here for a while, studying mussels and other species.

Tell me a little bit about, why so many mussel species, why they're important and why so many are endangered or are in trouble here in the state of Kentucky.

Well, that's a great question.

We have, a lots of habitat.

We have a lot of rivers, lakes, streams, in a lot of variety of habitats, from mountains to lowlands, coastal plain in western Kentucky, big rivers such as Ohio River, Tennessee, Cumberland.

As a result of that, we have about 105 species.

Unfortunately, we have about 29 species that are threatened or endangered.

Three of those are threatened, 26 are endangered.

And the main reason is because their habitat has been damaged and replaced with urban development and other things.

Water quality has caused a lot of problems.

Even invasive species like the zebra mussel and the Asian clam and general pollution.

And the last but not least, you know, back in the turn of the century, freshwater mussels were collected and over harvested for the button industry, and for pearls and so you combine all those things together and the fact that their host fish, which is they have to have a host to connect, live, live in the same water they do.

And if you lose their host, then you might lose the freshwater mussel as well.

Fortunately, though, we do have several good populations of endangered species that live in the state.

And in fact, Kentucky is home to the best population of things like the Fan Shell anywhere in the country.

And it's thriving.

So some of them are thriving, but other ones, like the Cats Paw, are not doing too well.

Yeah, yeah, we've been out and, you had us on the green River.

You said it's one of the areas that have the, the, the most diverse number of mussel species anywhere in the country, maybe the world, right?

Well, it's about 25% of all the North American species are right there.

And the green River, which is pretty remarkable since we have 300 species in North America, and that's about a third of all the world species.

But we have about 10 or 15% of all the world's species right here in Kentucky in the green River.

And it's pretty remarkable that you can go to one small area and the green, let's say, near Mammoth Cave National Park and see over 50 species in one location.

It's really, there's very few places in the world that you can see that.

Yeah.

It's amazing.

You know, in that green River, it's changing.

They're taking out some of the dams and that will, that will should help.

Right, right.

In fact, we've had three major dams on the green taken out in the last ten years.

And what that's allowing us to see now is fish can migrate all the way from the Ohio River, swim all the way up to green River Lake and all the way down and up the Barron River to Brown River Lake.

In the last few years, I've seen a few species that, our freshwater mussels showing up miles up from where it's ever occurred before, because the host fish can actually move upstream now.

Yeah.

So it's encouraging to see the fish population changing.

And also it's reflected by the mussel population.

Yeah.

Fantastic.

Mallory miles, you are this is your first time doing a live show, so we're glad to have you tell me a little bit about some of the things that you're working on here in the agency.

So I'm an avian biologist, and I have lots of projects going on, so I'm just going to tell you about one of my current favorites.

It is a project we're doing with the prothonotary warbler.

It's a small yellow bird.

You'll usually see it around water.

It's migratory.

So it's going to be here during the summer and spring, but it won't be here during the winter.

So in 2016, we put out about 100 nest boxes on some of our wildlife management areas for prothonotary warblers.

They're birds that like to nest in cavities.

So they█re really dependent on a hollow tree or a nest box to be able to, to build a nest and raise young.

So the boxes we put out in 2016 look about like this.

They're made out of PVC pipes.

So they're plastic and they're a dark color.

And we had some concern that maybe as our summers are getting warmer, these nest boxes might be a little bit warm for the birds.

So this year, we added about, 50 new wooden nest boxes.

And we are comparing how the birds do in the PVC boxes versus the wooden boxes.

So we go out once a week and we check on the boxes, we see which ones the birds are choosing to use and how many chicks are in there.

And, eventually, how many chicks survive to leave the boxes.

So.

Yeah.

Fascinating.

Yeah.

So, the box that you're using now with the wood kind of looks very similar to a blue bird boxes.

What's the similarities there or what's the differences?

Yeah, that's a great question.

So with nest boxes, one of the most important features is how big the entry hole is.

You can actually look up online.

I think Audubon has some really good information about, if you want to attract a certain species, how big this hole should be.

But prothonotary warblers are a little bit smaller than Blue Bird, so the entry hole is a little bit smaller.

Okay.

But otherwise the boxes are similar.

Very similar.

Okay.

Fantastic.

We already have a few questions coming in, and for our first question we have that individual is going to win one of these two Kentucky Wild hats.

So we have a couple of Kentucky Wild hats.

And we're also going to be at the state Fair, Kentucky Wild is going to be at the state Fair, and that's going to be on August the 25th.

So if you're interested in learning more about Kentucky wild or becoming a member or picking up any of the Kentucky Wild merchandise, make sure you come check us out at the State Fair on August the 25th.

So first question is from Dave.

He wants to know why do bats hang upside down and why do they fly at night?

Hey, that's an interesting question, you know?

Yeah.

Thank you.

Be sure to just sleep right side up.

But, why do they do that?

Well, you'll notice with bats, they do not do a lot of right side of.

They, they really don't.

Do, you know, they can't really stand like we can, they hang the way that they hang their muscles in their toes just automatically kind of close.

So it's more natural for them to be kind of just hanging on to the wall.

And then the way that they, you know, you'll see them take off from something at night, it's more advantageous for them to just drop and then start flying.

People often say that, you know, they can't take off from the ground.

They can.

Their wings are pretty strong, but it's much more advantageous for them to be in that drop position already.

Yeah.

They can you'll kind of see them moving around, like using their arms to move.

But you know, they're much better at flying.

So hanging around upside down is just easier from the get started.

And then for the the other question was why do they go out at night.

It's why they fly at night.

Oh okay.

So they're foraging.

If you see them at night they're flying around.

You know you might see them around your lamppost or your street lights.

They're getting all the insects that are attracted to there.

The moths and everything like that.

And they are basically just spending the night.

You'll see them zipping around, eating insects.

You know, when we were out in the field, you had a couple of, slow motion shots where you actually had video of bats coming down and get grabbing a drink of water and how they do that, and you start thinking, wait a minute.

Yeah.

How do they drink?

And, you know, I'm sure they get moisture from other things, but they can actually go down and touch the water and get.

Yeah, they will skim right off of the top of the water.

It's it's very impressive.

That was such a great photo when I, when you show me that picture I'm like wow that's really cool.

Yeah.

What are the chances of catching that moment where it's got his mouth open.

I did not catch that photo.

Oh well someone showed me when we were out there, I thought, man, that's that's really, really cool.

And the next question, also a winner of one of our Kentucky Wild hats.

It comes from Lindsay.

It's what is the greatest depth a crayfish will dig to find water on land.

That's a good question.

Well, basically the drier the land gets, the deeper they'll go to find the water.

I have seen them 6 to 8ft.

6 to 8ft.

That is not uncommon to see the, the taller the chimneys, the deeper the crayfish.

And they're very intricate burrows.

Sometimes, most of the time they█ll have two entrances.

The soil type will also determine how deep they can go.

A certain place in the mountains, they can only go about a foot deep, but you get the right soil type.

Down in western Kentucky, they can go about as deep as the water table is.

So when you say the chimney is taller, that means that the burrow was actually deeper, because I know they're bringing that up.

Obviously, if you knock one of those chimneys down, how long is it going to take that crayfish to build that back?

Yeah, they'll rebuild them back overnight.

And they they just go down, grab a ball of mud and pack it down there and keep going and working tirelessly the entire night.

So it's amazing to me because, you know, you think ants, you work like crazy.

Well, crayfish are kind of right like that.

I mean, to be able to.

Do they doing that one crayfish per chimney?

Typically that's normal the case.

But others, when they have the young and stuff, there'll be more in there.

But if it gets really, really dry, they can take in one ball and seal off the chamber of the top.

So.

So you know, we're in a drought when you see the crayfish chimneys have a little seal at the top of their chimneys.

Oh wow.

So such an intelligent little species to be able to do that.

Amazing.

All right.

Our third question here is from a gentleman by the name of Tony said he's seen eagles near his home in Lawrence County.

And he was wondering how far away the young Eagles will move to establish their own territory.

Oh.

Good question.

So I'm assuming he's probably asking about bald eagles.

So the young will stay the the eggs will take about 30 days to hatch, a little more than 30 days.

And then the young will be in the nest for a little over two months.

After that, when they actually fledge, which means they have left the nest.

They'll hang out in the area for 4 to 6 weeks.

And during that time, you might see them in some funny places that you wouldn't expect to see an eagle.

You might see them on the ground.

They█re okay.

They're just learning to fly.

So, you know, they're figuring it out.

Their parents will still attend to them for those 4 to 6 weeks.

That they are near the nest.

After that, when they eventually move off to establish their own territory, most of them will go about 40 or 50 miles.

But it does vary a lot between individuals.

They have their own little personalities.

40 or 50 miles.

So that's typically about how far they may go to establish their own hunting grounds and nesting territory?

That's the average, when they're young, they will actually roam around for a while before they establish a territory.

It might be 4 or 5 years before they actually set up a territory.

And start breeding themselves, but when they do that, it's usually within 50 miles of their home territory.

Okay.

The good news is that the parents usually keep re using the nest.

So even if the babies don't establish a territory nearby, he'll probably be seeing the parents nest there for for their next few years.

Okay.

Is it a myth that eastern Hellbenders only live in excellent, healthy streams?

Or is it true that one of the reasons we are seeing their disappearance, so much so, is water quality and one of the reasons we're seeing, their disappearance?

Yeah, it's it's absolutely true that, they do need, you know, pretty clean, pristine streams and cool water streams to survive.

So some of the reasons that they're declining is actually because of stream quality, you know, pollution, sedimentation, anything that's getting in there and disturbing the flow that they need because they're breathing through their skin.

So, they need to be able to oxygenate pretty well.

They're also susceptible to things, you know, like fungal diseases, people collecting them for the pet trade, really all kinds of factors that can, can impact them.

So it's not a myth and that they can only live in healthy streams.

The fact is they could potentially live in that stream if the water quality was better, I'm assuming.

Right.

Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

That's the next question.

How, do fish benefit Freshwater mussels?

We talked a little bit about this, but tell us a little more about that and some of the relationships.

You know, when people think of fish, they think of something big and that they're going to catch typically, but they all start out small.

And so as they start out small, like less than an inch or so, their main food is going to be invertebrates that live on the bottom of the streams.

And a lot of invertebrates need plankton, they need algae and detritus and things like that that are in the water column and they can't get to it.

So the freshwater mussels do them a big favor and they filter all the stuff that's in the water column, and they eat what they want, and they dump the rest on the bottom for a buffet for all these insects, they also create a lot of habitat and space.

Stabilize the stream bottom.

And so when the fish, as the fish are growing up and they're eating all these insects that are established on these mussel shell and on the bottom of the streams, they get larger and larger, and eventually they move out to different areas.

But they're really dependent on those freshwater mussels filtering the water.

In fact, we do filtration experiments all the time where we put a bunch of mussels in the tank and just in an hour later, it's completely clear they have the great ability to filter gallons of water a day.

And so a couple hundred years ago, every stream in Kentucky would have been filtered daily by the freshwater mussel population, and the fish population would have benefited greatly as well.

Unfortunately, with the populations down, the fish aren't benefiting as much.

Now.

They're also connected to freshwater mussels because mussels need a fish as a host.

So some freshwater mussels have a little lure that they will stick out and they will wiggle it and they'll go fishing.

And so the fish have come along, see a lure, looks like something they would eat and strike that mussel.

And the larvae will get on to the fish host.

Since we have 200 some species of fish in Kentucky, over a hundred species of mussels, that connection is highly variable around the state.

While the rare endangered mussels have a rare fish that they use, sometimes they have a common fish in fact, some of the mussels that have the little fishing like lure.

It looks like a minnow use bass, and so healthy bass populations usually follow a muscle population pretty well.

One needs the other to be able to survive, and the more we can have more species of fish and diversity of mussels and fish together, the better our streams are going to be down the road.

Fantastic.

Well, that's great to know.

Next question.

This is a question about armadillos.

Who wants to answer an armadillo question here?

Hey, man, if you traveled the roads of Western Kentucky, you're going to see him there everywhere.

And this is an interesting question because it says, I've recently learned that we have armadillos here in Kentucky.

I thought they were a warmer, weathered species.

What happens to them during our winters?

So, how do they survive the winters if they're more of a warmer weather, southern animal?

Well, they don't actually hibernate.

They go into burrows in the winter time, so they they dig these big burrows.

And actually, other species of wildlife will use those burrows after, after they have left them.

But they will just kind of bed down in these burrows.

And then since they don't hibernate, they do have to come out for food.

And so they'll just come out, you know, during the periods where it's warm enough for them to survive.

Because the question or the asker of the question is right, that the reason that they're moving further north into our state is because we're having milder winters.

Okay, okay.

Yeah, it should have been here last year.

We got 4 or 5 days in the winter.

It was freezing cold.

They would be like packing their bags and headed south.

They we're down in those burrows on those days.

How long can one of these, armadillos, go without food?

I mean, you know, I'm not really sure.

I mean, they go for my understanding.

They go pretty dormant, you know, during the winter, but, yeah, they're not truly hibernating.

Gotcha.

Okay, well, I think they can, you know, last out some of these cold spans.

If we were to get a really, you know, heavy long term winter where it didn't thaw at all, I think the population that, you know, has moved into the state would definitely be had a little bit got you.

And then, they, they're eating grubs and grub worms and things like that?

What all do they feed on?

So they I mean, they're pretty, they're omnivores and they'll really try to eat whatever they can find, you know, they'll eat, like worms, snails, insects.

If you see them rooting around and they're kind of like, you know, digging around, they are basically just trying to pick up any kind of insects, frogs, anything that they can find, they will they will basically eat.

Oh, wow.

Fantastic.

It is a fascinating species.

We've ran into them several times, especially in the land between the lakes area.

But traveling western Kentucky, I mean, it's if you just watch the road, you're going to see them there.

Yeah.

Unfortunately, they're getting hit.

I mean, I know they're not a native species here so, fortunately or unfortunately however you look at it, but there's quite a few of them out on the roads.

Yeah.

And that's really where they've been kind of most concentrated.

But we have a record as far east as, Pike County now.

And so if, if people are wanting to, you know, record where armadillos are, we recommend, submitting photos on iNaturalist there.

We don't necessarily need a phone call about every single armadillo because they are so widespread now.

They're in over 63 counties.

But if people are interested in documenting them, just snapping a picture and putting them on the I naturalist I naturalist app is really helpful.

So that that's probably for, important for more than just armadillos.

Absolutely yeah.

If you see anything, any wildlife species that it's not common that doesn't hurt to go on there and log that in right, take a picture?

Yeah.

I mean, even even common species are helpful.

Just so you know, there's always a record of the various things that we think should be in a certain area.

And just as people continue to see them, you know, common or rare, it's very helpful to put it on a Inaturalist.

So I know a lot of times people see something they've never seen before or they think it's unique.

You know, they want to talk to a biologist and sometimes, you know, you guys are out in the field.

Yeah.

That's that's kind of tough.

So if you were to post something on that, that site, is there a biologist that are keeping up with that, that if it is something unique, they're going to reach out to you and find out more about exactly where you█re at?

Yeah, we definitely take a look on I naturalist records.

Especially, you know, if we haven't been out to an area in a while and we are about to go out there and kind of seeing, you know, what people have recorded that that's really useful.

Okay.

And that that's the, the, the letter I. Yes, I naturalist it's a phone app.

And you if you haven't used it before you can basically just snap a photo.

It usually shows where the location is the day that you, you know, saw the species.

If you, you're also trying to get better at like identifying things like you say, you're out looking at salamanders and you want to try to see what you're looking at.

The I naturalist will try to do like a baseline identification for you.

It's not always correct.

But then, you know, they'll be researchers or other people that will be on there and they will suggest identification.

So you can learn a lot on there too.

There you go.

If you have something very rare, though, I would obscure the location.

Yeah, yeah.

Oh, so you can do that.

You can also obscure it.

Or if you just are like at your house and you don't necessarily want, you know, everyone to know it's right there.

But if you want information on you might want to leave that information for all the other.

Yeah.

Or the biologists that might be checking in.

And we can always reach out to the person and, you know, see the information from there.

So yeah.

Yeah.

Very, very interesting.

There you go.

A little tip there.

All right.

Do bird feeders, affect the natural forage habits of wild birds?

Is it beneficial to feed them year around?

Yeah, that's a really great question because I know a lot of people love their bird feeders.

So this is something that there's still the research hasn't really reached a consensus.

There are a few species that we do believe their range has expanded north, as there's more food available at food feeders in, in the winter months in the north.

So cardinals and house wrens that's been observed.

In general, birds evolved to use very ephemeral food sources.

They evolve to find a food source, eat there for a few days, and then normally that food source runs out and they have to move somewhere else, and they still really have that internal rhythm.

So we get a lot of calls from people who say, suddenly all the birds are gone where they used to come to my feeders and I don't know where they are now.

That's just something birds do.

They move from food source to food source.

We don't believe that bird feeders are affecting that pattern very much in most species.

We don't believe that bird feeders are affecting the timing of migration either, very much, because that's really triggered by changes in the daylight level.

More so than how much food is available.

But this is still a great question.

And I think there are some things to think about when you're using bird feeders.

One of them is sanitation.

So there are some diseases that can be spread through bird feeders.

And when you're attracting a lot of birds into one place and they're they're all being messy again, you know, swapping body fluids, you can spread diseases that way.

So you do want to feed, you want to change your bird feeders pretty often.

You don't want to leave food in there for a long time.

I usually clean mine with a bleach solution, like, once a week.

You also don't want to put bird feeders very close to a window, because a major killer of birds is flying into windows because, like, they can't perceive glass the same way we do.

So that's a thing you want to be aware of.

Also, if there's stray cats in the area, and you see them checking out your bird feeder, you might want to take out away your bird feeder for a little while.

So those are kind of the concerns that we have about bird feeders, more so than how it affects the birds natural foraging habits.

One alternative, and something that I prefer to do is try to grow native plants that the birds will use.

Because for one thing, it's less work.

I don't have to clean the bird feeder once a week.

And for another thing, it's just a little bit more natural for them.

In addition to providing food, it also provides some nesting habitat structure.

So I love native plants.

I use those mostly in the summer and then in the winter, when there's not as much food available, I will take out a bird feeder.

Okay, so you talk a little bit about, birds that we're talking about bird feeders and seeds.

What about hummingbirds?

Is there a certain time where you do put out your hummingbird feeders?

A time you should take them down or quit putting the, the solution, the nectar or whatever it is that you put in there?

Yeah, that's a great question as well.

So again, we don't really have strong evidence that, having food available affects the timing of migration, and it's still being researched, but right now we don't have strong evidence to believe that.

So I wouldn't worry about if I leave my feeder out long, too long.

My birds are not going to migrate.

That doesn't seem to be something that happens, but I will just plug native plants again because, the more concerning thing is not cleaning that hummingbird feeder often enough, because that solution out in the hot sun, it can go bad pretty quickly, and that can be bad for birds.

But if you put a native honeysuckle, the coral, coral, honeysuckle or impatient or bee balm, those things, you don't have to worry about them going bad and making birds sick.

So I love those food sources as well.

Very good.

That's great information to know there.

All right.

The next question here is, what steps can a paddler take to avoid disturbing freshwater mussels and their habitats while kayaking or canoeing in streams?

I mean, I definitely would encourage people to get out in where are where there are mussels in their kayaks and paddle and and not worry about hurting the animals.

People have had boats for centuries and not impacted the mussels at all.

So I get that question all the time.

You know, if I'm going to step on them and hurt them or anything like that, most of them stay mostly buried under the surface.

I'd say at least half of them are completely buried.

Now, if you're in an area like Mammoth Cave National Park and you know, there's protected areas and, you know, the mussel populations are really high, you can see lots and lots of shells.

You can just kind of walk around and and avoid them if you see some.

But I'm not too worried about people stepping on them, except for maybe certain times of year when their lures are out.

So if you actually see one and something's wiggling out of a mussel, okay, we'll leave that one alone because it's trying to get, the fish host to come along and strike it.

So that's typically going to be in like May and June.

And also maybe in late September and October, the middle of the summer.

They're not really doing a whole lot, they're staying burrowed down during the day a lot of times.

And maybe coming up at night, people walk around on them all the time fishing without any impacts at all.

And, I really don't think it's a threat at all.

Now, if you take a bulldozer across a mussel bed and destroy the habitat.

Yes, you're going to cause some, you know, some problems, but just people walking around their kayaks.

Actually, that's how we get to a lot of our mussel beds, is using our kayaks and stuff, and we're walking around looking for them.

I'm not too worried about, injuring the animals.

They're pretty tough.

You can drop them and, not hurt them.

And, they're pretty resilient.

So, definitely get people out with them and learn about why they're rare, the best places that they see them.

And let, let people know, hey, this is a mussell bed.

Let's be a little careful there, but let's enjoy it as well.

So next question here.

Another question about mussels, Monte, every time you're on, everybody's like, this is our chance to get these mussel questions answered.

How do mussels move around and feed?

You've, you've demonstrated this and you've showed me how this works.

This is actually pretty fascinating.

Tell me how they move and then how they feed.

Well, they have a large, muscular foot and some, some people in the state or in other places, they call it a tongue.

Yeah.

They kind of looks like that.

It's it's very change of shape, but they basically will take their foot and inject it into the substrate and then stretch it as far as they can, and then maybe expand the end of it out and then pull themselves down and so they can crawl around on the surface.

Sometimes you you'll be out and you'll see this ditch on the top of the water that's maybe about two inches wide.

And it's going in circles.

And I think they're writing messages to us.

So but they move around with the foot and, they, they have siphons that allow them to pump water, and filter the water.

So one, one mussel maybe like this size.

This is a washboard mussel It's one of our largest mussel species we have in the state.

This thing can can filter gallons of water a day.

Even the little ones can filter gallons of water a day, but they basically will live in the bottom of the stream.

They'll be open about like that.

And they're just pumping water constantly 24 hours a day and keeping our waters nice and clean.

And when you have millions of these things on the bottom of these rivers, our, our rivers used to be pristine and clear.

And then as they started disappearing from pollution and things, we don't see that in a lot of places now.

And so, people like clean and clear water and sometimes that is associated with not polluted water, but just because it's not a little turbid doesn't mean it's not good as well.

And the mussels maybe have a little more buffet when there's a little bit of stuff in there.

But you talked about flooding.

So one aspect of flooding that's real important for a lot of aquatic species, that is when the rivers flood, they go up and hit the flood plains and they grab a lot of nutrients.

They grab a lot of insects in that as it recedes that bring all that stuff down for all the fish and the mussels and anything that's living in the water.

So they depend on that cycle, throughout the year and even the seasonal times to be able to bring them food.

And so stir the water up a little bit.

And the mussels have a little bit of a buffet for a few days, and there's plenty.

So the flooding it's good for the mussels then?

It doesn't hurt them at all.

And in fact I was on the green River in 2010, the highest levels I've ever seen the river.

And I went down a month later in the area where we have mussels, and there were mussels that I placed in there two years before and hadn't moved any.

And most mussels don't move a lot in their lifetime.

They all set in one location their entire life, while other species will move around quite a bit.

Now what I mean by quite a bit, probably several feet in their lifetime.

Yeah.

Now when they're juveniles, they'll move on with on the fish.

When they're the larvae, they'll get on fish and move miles down the river.

Yeah.

So that's how they really move distances.

But when they're adults do they find a good place and a good substrate that stable.

They're going to stick around there for their entire life, which could be 100 years.

Next question.

Had a bat outside of their house, up near the roof.

A few weeks ago.

Should they be concerned?

And was that bat sick?

It didn't say if it was in daylight or dark or any of that type information, but they they have one outside of their house up near the roof, and they want to know if they should be concerned and if it's sick.

So this time of year is the time that the, you know, juvenile bats are just starting to fly.

They're learning to fly.

They're just getting on the wing.

And they are just a little bit clumsy, like Mallory was talking about with the fledgling birds.

It's the same kind of thing, you know, the bats.

I mean, bats are the only mammals that have true flight.

So it takes a lot of energy expenditure for them flapping their wings and getting that lift that they need, and the juveniles less so than the adults if they land on, you know, the side of your house or your shutters or your window, the juveniles, if they're tired, they usually just stay there, whereas the adults will kind of be more aware that they should go to a little bit more cover.

They should go to a tree.

So nine times out of ten this time of year, when you're seeing that it is a young bat that is just trying to get its footing and more than likely at night it will fly off and it will, you know, start feeding and it will find a new, new spot.

It's not necessarily sick just because it's, you know, hanging on to the side of the house.

If you see, you know, like an obvious injury or something, that's a different story.

But if it if it is just kind of sitting there, it's more than likely will fly off overnight.

You know, people think about bats.

Everybody thinks the worst case scenario, rabies and things like that.

But I'm not sure if this, this question was about should they be concerned for the bat safety or they should be concerned for their own safety?

At what point in time, if you have an injured animal around your house, should you be concerned?

Not obviously about that animal, but about also being around it, touching it, any of that type of thing.

So we always recommend never to handle bats, you know, because while rabies, it's a very low percentage, you know, less than 1% of the wild population of bats does carry rabies.

It is a very serious disease.

So if you do run into that very rare case that it does carry rabies, you do not want to be handling that bat.

If you have a bat that you know gets inside of your house, there's a couple things you can do to get it out.

Often.

You can, you know, if it's in a certain room, close the door to that room, open a window, shut the light off.

You leave the room, and the bat will usually fly out of the window at that point.

If you do have to get involved and, you know, kind of scoop it into a box, I recommend, like putting on leather gloves, getting kind of like a magazine or a newspaper and kind of scooping it into a cardboard box and then carrying it outside from there.

And usually it'll just fly off.

We just don't recommend, you know, touching them or handling them, because if they do get scared, they will bite.

All right, next question.

I'm not even sure what this animal is.

It's, what is the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife doing with the loggerhead shrike?

Oh, that's one of mine.

Okay, there you go.

Actually, I can I can show you a shrike.

So this is a, I promise I did not plan this question, so I don't know who's asking, but this is a loggerhead shrike.

It sort of resembles a mockingbird, but you can see that it has a prominent black mask on its face.

That's how you can tell it apart from a mockingbird.

So this is a songbird.

But it acts a lot like a lot like a raptor.

So they actually will eat mice and they will eat frogs and, lizards.

Sometimes crickets are like a large cricket, but the way they behave like raptors is you'll often see them up on, like, an electricity wire or a telephone wire.

They like to perch up high and look for prey.

And they like to be in a habitat with really short grass where they can easily see prey.

And they will swoop down, they'll they'll take that prey.

And what they're most famous for, they have a nickname.

It's butcher Bird.

What they're most famous for is not only will they eat large prey that you wouldn't expect a songbird to eat, but they like to impale it on a barbed wire fence or, a locust tree that has long thorns.

And they'll kind of, like, save it for later.

Oh, wow.

So they're a really neat bird.

Their population is declining very rapidly.

Right now we're not entirely sure why, because it does seem like there's more habitat available than strikes using the habitat.

Like I said, they like the really short grass.

They like cow pastures.

They like places that don't scream, you know, wildlife refuge to us.

That's where I most often see them.

So we're trying to investigate what's causing their decline.

Some ideas are possibly insecticides or rodenticides, poisons that could be reaching them through their, their, their food sources.

Also, they really like, to nest in, like, a scrubby hedgerow, so they don't like agricultural areas that the fences are just very clean barbed wire, you know, they like to have kind of a scrubby hedge where they can hide a nest away, behind a bunch of thorns.

And I think that there's a tendency for us to want to clean up our fences, especially in some larger agricultural systems.

So is that a male or female species that that one you're holding, are they look the same?

They look pretty much the same.

In the field, when I'm trying to tell if it's a male or female, I have to spread out their wing and measure a white spot on one particular feather.

So it's a little hard to tell.

Males and females look the same.

It is a beautiful bird.

Yeah.

It's very neat.

Yeah.

So thank you.

Thanks for.

Don't let the beauty, fool you.

So that bird is a killer.

It's a killer.

It's a killer.

So currently, what we're doing with them mainly is, putting color bands on them.

Okay.

And that's just to try to estimate how big the population is.

So if we see a shrike, we can count it and know that it's not one that we just counted before.

Okay.

So that's kind of the extent of what we're doing with them right now.

But we do want to do more with them in the future.

Okay.

Very, very interesting.

Why are hellbenders important and what role do they play in the ecosystem?

Hellbenders I know you know a lot about those hellbenders You actually have one down there.

Yeah, we do have our size hellbender model.

So, you know, like we've kind of talked about before, they breathe through their skin, all of these, you know, folds and wrinkles that you see on the side of this, you know, life size model of one.

This is what they're using for, you know, respiration, breathing in the water.

So they're important because they do require these, you know, quality water or quality streams, quality rivers.

And so they're kind of, you know, people call them like a canary in the coal mine.

They're sort of an indicator of ecosystem health because they're, you know, very sensitive if there's something going wrong, if there is pollution, sedimentation, something that's really negatively impacting the water, these guys are not going to be able to survive there.

And so that's really important that, you know, we know areas where where something might be going on because this is a species that, you know, is greatest conservation need for us.

It's also, proposed to be listed as endangered by U.S.

Fish and Wildlife Service.

And so this is a species that has a lot of attention on it right now.

So we're really trying to figure out, you know, where there's still, you know, populations doing well.

And what can we learn from that.

Man, we've talked a lot about water quality and several species that you, that you guys are, that studying and working on.

And it seems like good healthy water is important to.

So many of the species throughout the state of Kentucky, whether they actually live in the water or they need the water for, you know, just for basic survival.

Everything needs to drink.

We need clean water too.

Exactly.

It's all important.

Such an interesting and, animal species.

And I know that you guys were working on for quite a while, and that's been one of the projects that people from Kentucky Wild have been able to be involved with throughout, throughout the time.

Well actually, one of the initial releases of these you had quite a few people with Kentucky wild, volunteers, out to help with this.

Yeah.

I mean, our Kentucky Wild members have been, you know, directly contributing to the the research projects that we're doing.

And then over at the mussel facility, we have, you know, hellbenders that are being reared for release right now, and members are contributing to the things that they need food and stuff to rear them up.

Okay.

Fantastic.

I mentioned Kentucky Wild because the next question is actually about Kentucky wild, some of our audience is noticing that you're all wearing the exact same blue on blue Kentucky wild shirt.

They want to know this is the newest one.

And if they renew their Kentucky Wild membership, is there any way they can get one of these?

So, this is the latest, latest and greatest Kentucky Wild shirt.

I'll tell you.

Do you guys see these these shirts out and about in the public a lot now?

Absolutely.

Every corner of the state.

It amazes me every time I'm out on the water.

Anytime I walk into a store, I run into someone wearing one of these Kentucky wild shirts of some various color.

So this is the newest, latest and greatest Kentucky wild shirt.

It's a blue on blue.

You can get one at the Kentucky State Fair.

You can join as a member there.

But also this this will be your membership t shirt for joining this year's okay.

If you join as a member.

And what that means is we have different membership levels for Kentucky Wild.

And so when you join as an annual member, your dollars that go towards your membership fee are are directly contributing to all of the species we're talking about tonight and all of the projects that we're using to both conserve and monitor all of these species, you know, our bats, our songbirds, our raptors, our freshwater mussels, our non-game fish.

Our salamanders, reptiles, amphibians, really all of that that we study in our section and help to conserve.

That's what that funding directly goes to.

And you can show that support by getting one of these really cool, cool looking t shirts that they're they're everywhere now.

I mean, they really are.

And they're very comfortable.

That's one of the reasons you see them so much.

We have over 16,000 members in the state, well, actually not just in the state of Kentucky and in all of our, you know, 50 states and some international members.

So it's a great way if you if you, you know, if you hunt, fish the state of Kentucky, you should be really interested in this program.

But if you don't and you just love, you know, animal watching and observing and just are very concerned about the health of many of these species you're talking about, this is a great way to support.

And that's why becoming a a member of Kentucky Wild.

So appreciate you guys about modeling the the new blue t shirt today.

Next question is, do freshwater mussels produce pearls.

You talked about this earlier.

Talk a little bit about freshwater mussels and pearls.

Well, that's, that's where the pearl gets its name.

It's, it's basically the mother of pearl, and, sometimes the mussels.

You can see how shiny this is.

So what happens is the mussel will be filtering its food and get a little piece of sand or a little piece of another mussel shell that gets stuck inside the mantle tissue, which is the tissue that forms the shell.

And it'll, it's an irritant.

So what it does, it creates a layer of pearl around it.

It's very rare to see a round pearl in nature.

I've only seen a few of them.

Most time they're kind of odd shaped.

I have a few pearls here.

The example of what they look like.

These are cultured pearls.

Okay, so you make a culture burrow by inserting a little bead inside of a freshwater mussel, and, and then a couple three years later, these things will keep getting bigger and bigger.

And then you harvest the freshwater mussel, but they're really they're really pretty.

A lot of people make, you know, jewelry in the past.

Here's some little tiny pearls that are made from freshwater mussels.

But they're very rare in fact, a couple of years ago, I went to, Europe to see the crown jewels.

So I wanted to see the real pearls on the Kings and Queens jewelry.

Of course, you can't touch it or take pictures of it or anything, but they're not even perfectly round.

And they were pretty close.

So even the best ones in the world are not perfectly round.

And, usually they're oval shaped and a little bit odd looking.

But the culture ones that people have in their jewelry are made from, from freshwater muscle shells, or they're made by putting the inserting an object, any object at all that you put in a freshwater mussel, it'll make it, you could put a penny in there, and it'll cover the penny with the mother of pearl in about a year or so.

Really?

So those are the ones you're showing?

I guess different species may grow faster or slower.

Different colors.

Right?

They are.

I noticed that there were some different colors of the ones that you were showing us.

Are not exactly what you call pearl white.

Yeah, there's there's some that are purple and pink.

So whatever the color of the shell is the color the pearl is going to be, you can even have black pearls.

I mean, really, there's a lot of variety of pearl colors, that I've seen over the years, and collected, sometimes you'll see them, collect, you know, when the mussels die or something, they'll open up and there'll be a little pearl in there, maybe the size of a pencil eraser.

That would be a big one.

Okay, so a really large pearl, would be really rare in nature.

It would be worth a lot of money.

In fact, that's one of the reason mussels are declined because in early 1900s, late 1800s, people would harvest the mussels in Kentucky, killed thousands of them just to try to get a pearl.

Yeah, and it might take 20,000 mussels to get a pearl.

And you can think of the damage that was done.

I've read articles in 1900 where the mussel pearl fishery has had pretty much been exhausted.

That means all of them were collected for that purpose.

And so it really did decimate the population.

And overharvesting was one of the problems.

That's why we see the rare ones today.

Even some, even some of the ones that are rare made pearls just like the common ones.

Wow.

But in now too, it that's been regulated.

And there's laws that protect against that.

You don't get caught out tearing mussels apart looking for pearls, do you?

Yeah.

We we you cannot harvest mussels in Kentucky for the last 11 years of the harvest ended in 2015.

It was restricted in 2005, and eliminated in 2015.

That's pretty much the same in every state.

There's just not enough of them out for the cultured pearl industry.

And the Chinese have actually figured out a way to make them without taking these shells and that, in the past, they would take a shell from North America like this and then would cut the holes in it and round those off and put them into an oyster or, muscle in China, New Zealand, Japan.

And they would grow another couple of years.

And that's how they make a cultured pearl.

But they quit trying to buy the the shells started getting rare and rarer to get.

So they started figuring out a different way.

About 20 years ago, Chinese figured out a way to make them without buying shells from North America.

So that really helped the harvest out a lot and cut the demand for them.

So, in the past 20 years ago, we had 1500 people in Kentucky, collected mussel sales for an industry, a commercial mussel fisherman.

Wow.

And so that industry died down pretty fast after the Chinese switched.

Their the market was no longer needed.

Yeah.

But the mussels were in so good demand because we had the best quality shells anywhere in the world in Kentucky and Tennessee and so on.

Wow.

That is really interesting.

Next question is, what is the best for mosquito control for their property?

Bat houses, purple Martin houses or something different?

They█re wanting to control the the mosquito population by using birds.

What's the best way to go about this?

Yeah.

Do we need to arm wrestle?

Why not both?

Yeah.

That's true.

You could do both.

I don't know, what do you think Michaela?

Well, I don't know how many, you know.

I mean, bats will eat insects all through the night like we've been talking about.

So putting up a bat box and, you know, giving them a house to live in so that they will, you know, forage around your yard is definitely helpful.

But you could also put up Purple Martin houses.

And this is something that I was thinking about when you were asked earlier why bats forage at night?

So there's a really interesting concept in ecology called niche partitioning.

It means that you have animals that use the same resource, but they found a way to divide it up.

So a good example would be purple martins or maybe eating mosquitoes during the day or other insects during the day.

Then they go away at night and bats come out and they don't have to compete with each other even though they're eating the same, resource.

But I'm glad that this question was asked because in general, I think people don't realize how many of our birds are actually insectivores.

People tend to think of birds eating birdseed because that's what they put in their feeder.

But a lot of our birds actually exclusively eat or almost exclusively eat insects.

And those are some of the birds that we're seeing decline the fastest because people are using a lot of insecticides.

People don't like bugs.

People who are not as nice as this person who wants to use natural controls for their mosquitoes are spraying a lot of poisons.

And that's affecting species higher up the food chain as well.

So I think our vote is both.

Yeah.

You can get your daytime and your nighttime mosquito.

You can't go wrong.

So how many like a purple marten?

Like, if they were feeding on mosquitoes throughout the day, how many mosquitoes would they eat?

I couldn't tell you.

I'm sorry.

Any studies on bats?

On how many they would eat in a period of time?

There is no I mean, they can eat, you know, hundreds if not thousands of insects a night, but it kind of depends on this, you know, so if they're just eating something small, like any of the flies which are mosquitoes fly, you know, fall into the dipture of, the flies, the order of the flies, the order that flies are in.

They're going to need to eat, you know, hundreds of them versus if they're eating, you know, beetles or large bodied moths.

You know, especially if they can get one of the larger ones, they're going to feed on that for a minute, and then they'll go back out and try to get more.

It really depends on the prey availability, which is of course changing.

You know, in the time of year in the area, like the ones over the water might have been, you know, getting everything that's kind of in and out of the water as well.

So obviously we heard about bats and they mentioned purple martins.

What other birds can you attract to your property?

That would be good for, she said something else.

What other birds might be good for, eating mosquitoes that we didn't discuss with purple martins and bats?

There's a whole group of birds called fly catchers.

They eat insect insects of all types.

They would probably be good species for, for a little bit of mosquito control.

Some other insectivores would be whippoorwill and, chuck will's widows.

They again, like Mikayla was saying, they do prefer the beefier moths or dragonflies over having to eat a million mosquitoes.

Yeah.

But yeah, but if it's if it's in their flight path they're going to eat it.

Those are our insectivores.

They█re not going to, not take advantage of it.

Oh, yeah.

Absolutely.

You can feel the difference if you're doing a bat count.

You're getting eaten alive by mosquitoes.

And then suddenly they all come out and you're like, okay, that feels a lot better.

Michaela, the next one's actually a bat question as well.

Everybody wants the bat questions today.

What efforts are being done to help bat populations recover from white nose syndrome?

Is anything being done to prevent it, from altogether from happening again?

Well, so the part of the question that talks about happening again, you know, we have white nose syndrome, really, it's it's throughout the state of Kentucky.

Unfortunately, we had our first case or our first, you know, it first appeared in the state in 2011.

And it's it's very rapidly, rapidly spreading fungal disease.

So it's been in the state for, quite some time.

What we're considered in now is the, the range of states that are in the white nose system, white nose syndrome, endemic area.

So it's sort of just here.

And we have to continue to manage our bat populations the best we can, despite the sharp declines that happened throughout the, you know, 2013 to 2016, while the while the fungus was really getting established, we the things that we're doing to help bats is really trying to keep the disturbance away from the caves that they need.

So when they are, you know, in their winter hibernation.

We want to make sure that, you know, those areas are protected.

In some cases, if the cave is a candidate for it, we will put, a gate in front of it if it's somewhere that, you know, there's been a lot of disturbance.

People are going in and, you know, they're waking up because they're expending too much energy.

And that's really what kills them from white noses is not actually the fungus itself.

It's that the bats will wake up too much and they only have a certain amount of stores of, you know, that they're feeding in the fall.

They only have a certain amount of energy that they've stored up to make it through the winter.

So they really need to have as much of a of a dormant portion in the winter as possible.

So we're, you know, protecting caves, we're getting caves when necessary.

And we're really just trying to make sure, you know, when they come out in the summer, if we have areas that they're, you know, we know they're using on our wildlife management areas, we're putting up bat boxes.

So a lot of, you know, endangered bats are having their babies in those boxes.

We're giving them spaces, you know, to to build up the population moving forward.

Fantastic.

Last question here.

Is there any way for someone to get out on our WMA█s and see non-game wildlife?

So our WMA█s are spread across the state there in just about every county.

If someone wanted to, be able to get out there and learn something on one of our WMA█s, is is there any good ways to do that?

Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, it's a broad question.

So we probably all have an answer here, but I'll I'll start with one specifically.

We have had several plantings and we did a partnership with Roundstone Seed and we planted, these fields for people to go and monarch tag in them.

So these are just fields full of a flower called showy tick seed.

And it is a very bright yellow flower.

It's an annual it blooms in the fall, but it will reseed.

And we planted, you know, these fields at, rollingfork WMA, Taylorsville WMA, green River WMA, and Kleber WMA.

And then this year, I think, we have veterans WMA coming online with that and possibly a couple more.

I'll have to post a list when we get closer to monarch tagging time.

But, these are areas where people can, you know, go out.

The monarch butterfly really hones in when they're migrating.

They will they're very attracted to this particular flower.

And so they will come down and they will nectar and they will stop in this area.

So if you're someone that's into butterflies and monarch tagging specifically, these are areas for you to be able to go and check it out and try to, to tag some monarchs.

Okay.

You got you got your programs going on with people where the public can, go out on WMA█s and kind of see some of the things we've talked about tonight.

Sure.

So a great way to find these programs is becoming a Kentucky Wild member.

We do have programs that are exclusively for members where we take people out, on amphibian walks or sometimes bird banding events, where they're out with a biologist like us and we talk about the species that we're handling.

You can also go out by yourself.

A lot of our WMA█s like Benji Kinman where I am out once a week, it has a kayak launch.

You know, you don't have to show a Hunter or fishers license to use the kayak launch.

You can launch and do a lot of great birdwatching, see some prothonetaries, some other cool species, a lot of WMA█s have trail systems that are access roads, but you could easily walk them if you wanted to, to go birdwatching as well.

So yeah, fantastic.

Well, I really want to thank all you guys for being out here at your first show today.

So we appreciate you.

So we appreciate you coming on and sharing some of your knowledge with us.

So our WMA█s is it's a good time to get out there on them.

Very few hunting seasons are, they█re around the corner.

They start coming in in September.

But now's a good time for the next couple weeks to get out on some of the WMA█s and take a look at some of these animal species that are out there.

And also, there's always right here where we're sitting today, this Salato wildlife Education center is a great resource.

Before the kids go back to school, check the calendars, get out here to the Salato Wildlife Education center.

It's a great place to jump on a trail, run around and talk to some of the biologists and find out a little more about what your child's interests may be.

They may be the next panel of experts that are sitting up here in a few years.

So take advantage of that.

A couple more things to talk about.

We talked about the, the Kentucky Wild day at the State Fair.

Make sure if you're at the Kentucky State Fair on August 25th, you come by the Department of Fish and Wildlife booth and check out the Kentucky Wild Day at the State Fair.

It's a great way to sign up.

Look at some of the merchandise, and they'll have some animal species out there.

You can check as well.

Another thing, August the 20th is the Kentucky A field day at the State Fair.

So we'd love to see you come by.

We're going to be out there, shaking hands and hearing all your stories about hunting and fishing throughout the state of Kentucky.

So come check that out.

And just a reminder, Kentucky, a field will be preempted on CT for the next two weeks.

We'll be coming back to you with an all new show on August the 22nd.

Thanks again for coming out and sharing all your knowledge.

It was a great show and I learned a few things.

And remember hunting and fishing on private property is a privilege.

Always ask permission and thank the landowner.

Until next week, I'm your host, Chad Miles.

I hope to you in the woods or on the water.