This is the skull of an alligator snapping turtle, right?

Yes.

The head, you can kind of see it's- This week on Kentucky Afield.

We went live on Facebook to answer all of your Kentucky Wild questions and we're bringing you those answers right now.

It's all next on Kentucky Afield.

Hello and welcome to Kentucky AField.

I'm your host, Chad Miles.

Thank you for joining us tonight for our annual Kentucky Wild Question and Answer Show.

So this is what this is- the show that we talk about all the species of animals we have here in the state of Kentucky that we don't hunt, fish, or trap.

So we're brought to you here by Kentucky Wild.

You can see everyone's wearing their Kentucky wild gear.

What is Kentucky Wild?

We've had it around here in the state of Kentucky for quite a few years.

We've actually funded several projects, one of them that we were actually in the field working on yesterday.

We'll talk a little bit about that.

Michaela, tell me a little bit about what is Kentucky Wild.

Yeah.

So Kentucky Wild is a program for all of the species that we're actually going to be talking about tonight, things like songbirds, butterflies, and some of our frogs, snakes, salamanders, freshwater mussels, anything that we manage in the department that is not part of the species that are hunted, fished, or trapped.

So those species kind of have their own funding source for where people can buy licenses and the funding goes to those species.

There was never previously a way specifically to support other than buying, hunting and fishing licenses, but to have another way to support some of the other work that the department is doing with all of the kind of species that make up the wildlife diversity program.

So Kentucky Wild Funds, it's a membership based program, so any individual person can become a member of Kentucky Wild.

And when you do that, the funding from your membership, there's kind of different tier levels of memberships.

The funding from your membership goes directly to support the species that we're going to be talking about tonight.

And there's also different things.

So when you become a member, there's things like these T-shirts, some of the hats and stuff that we'll be talking about, but you can also get involved in experiences.

So we have some member experiences going on throughout the year for Kentucky Wild that members can actually sign up to come join us in the field and see a little bit of the work that we do in person.

Thanks, Michaela.

And we also have a promo that we'll talk about a little bit.

If you want to be a member of Kentucky Wild right now is a great time to do it.

We'll talk a little bit about that.

So we've met Michaela.

Let's meet our other panel guests here.

We have our expert- So we have state herpetologist John MacGregor.

Thank you, John, for coming tonight.

Oh, anytime.

we met Michaela Rogers who is a wildlife biologist and we also have Michael Patton, who is our avian biologist.

So if you want to be a member of Kentucky Wild, if you go to fw.ky.gov/kywild There's a place there that you can go and do an annual membership.

They're normally $50.

right now they're on there as a promotion for $35.

And what you get for that is a membership as well as this t-shirt that Michaela is wearing here, this red Kentucky Wild t-shirt.

You can also get that.

there's also a place on there to buy other other merchandise and gear for Kentucky Wild.

These country boy hats have been super popular.

I get asked all the time, where do you get one of these?

Well, this is how you do it.

They're only on there for a limited amount of time.

We only get a certain amount of these.

And if you want one of these hats, you go there to fw.ky.gov/kywild And you can also purchase one of these country boy brewing hats.

They're available right now.

So if you want one, you better get it pretty quickly.

All right.

We've already got questions coming in.

Let's get started.

Our first question here is from John Collins.

And he wants to know how common alligator snapping turtles are in Kentucky.

Wants to know, are there any modern records of alligator snapping turtles here in Kentucky?

Alligator snapping turtles.

Alligator snapping turtles are really rare in Kentucky.

Now, I get a lot of people that think they found them and they find young, common snapping turtles, which have three ridges like an alligator snapper.

But we only have 13 records of alligator snapping turtles ever in the state.

So a regular snapping turtle, they can get pretty big.

So people may confuse them based on size alone.

But how big?

What is a big record for a normal snapping turtle and then an alligator snapping turtle?

a really big normal snapping turtle might be 20lbs.

Okay.

I think the largest one ever caught in the state was over 60lbs.

Okay.

And it was, you know, in a pond, in a horse farm in Woodford County, and it was biting the noses of the horses.

Oh, wow.

But an alligator snapper reaches 100lbs or more.

They are big turtles.

They- you can recognize them by- they have a big overhung beak.

They when they open their mouth, they have this little pink worm on the end of their tongue.

A regular snapper has a tongue just like a just like a human.

It's a real thick tongue.

But other than that, it's pretty technical trying to identify them.

If you're not sure, I'll tell you.

if you want to see an alligator snapping turtle, do we have one here at the Salato Wildlife Education Center?

Actually we do we have one that started out in my basement.

And it kind of out-grew two aquariums and now it lives here at the Salato center.

Okay.

So if you want to see one, it's a good place to come.

To give you an idea.

I'm not going to try to pick this up because it is huge.

This is the skull of an alligator snapping turtle, Right?

Yes.

So the head, you can kind of see it's bigger than my hand.

It's huge.

These things get massive.

You say over 100lbs It's pretty easy to see how they get that size when you start looking at the the skull of that thing.

So they're very, very, very big.

And we- we have never found a juvenile alligator snapping turtle in Kentucky.

So we don't know that we even have them reproducing here.

Oh, wow.

Okay.

Next question is from David Aponte from Instagram.

How is- how are the monarch butterflies doing here in Kentucky?

Michaela, you actually work with the Monarch Butterflies quite frequently.

Tell us a little bit about how they're doing here in Kentucky.

I do, yeah.

So the monarch butterflies, you probably started seeing them around.

It's kind of that time of year that they're starting their fall migration and it's really hard to get a good census on exactly how monarchs are doing kind of individually in Kentucky last year.

Just having people like we have different people that help us go out and look for monarchs, tag monarchs.

And last year seemed to be a little bit of a lower year.

This year, they've started to kind of come back and we're starting to see higher numbers.

But the numbers in Kentucky don't always reflect the overall population.

So this past year, there were 2.84 hectares of monarch butterflies overwintering in Mexico.

And so that would have been kind of last year's fall population.

And then the year before we had 2.10.

So it kind of went down, oh wait, It was down a little bit and then it went up and that was kind of what last year seemed like a little bit lower of a year in Kentucky.

So even though kind of the numbers will look different in the state, we'll look at those overwintering numbers and they may look a little bit different because that's how you get the larger picture.

We talked about tagging Monarch Butterfly.

Yeah.

Interestingly enough, we've had monarch butterflies found in out of the country.

They were tagged here in Kentucky, which I think is just fascinating.

The monarch butterfly, the tag.

What would a tag look like if you actually found a butterfly?

What would what would it look like?

Yeah.

So I actually brought one here so we can see it's a little round sticker.

Okay.

And on each individual sticker, there's a unique tag number and so it used to be a six digit tag.

Now it's a seven digit tag because this has been such a successful program that it's been going on for over 20 years.

And so they've now had to add more numbers to the tag just so that we can- So if it looks like a piece of trash thats got stuck on this butterfly, don't try to remove it.

You will kill the butterfly.

Leave, leave it alone, because that is actually how we're studying.

You know, how the survival rate and how they're removed.

And even further, if you can get a picture of the tag or you can look at the tag and get the number and report that tag to either me or the department or someone at monarchwatch.org That's who runs the National Tagging Program that we participate in.

That is really important information for us to know about because that allows us to learn about where these monarchs are originating.

That could possibly be going all the way to Mexico.

Kind of what areas are most important in our states or where monarchs are stopping in Kentucky from other states on their migration South.

fantastic.

Well, thank you.

All right.

Next question is from Nick Ward on Instagram.

He wants to know how you can attract more birds to his house outside of a bird feeder.

So perfect.

We have our avian biologist right here.

Michael, how are you doing today?

I'm doing great.

So he didn't say what type of species of birds what what type of birds do people try to attract to their house outside of a bird feeder?

What would they want to see?

So outside, I think that's going to go to a bird feeder.

You're probably going be looking at more like insect eating birds.

So things like warblers that will breed here or else you just kind of coming through when they're migrating towards South America or Central America.

And that's going to attract, like that kind of bird is going to be, you know, having habitat that encourages insects to be in your yard.

So, I mean, planting native plants, native trees, having cover for those insects, especially overwintering insects, you know, getting there it was, you know, it looked dead to us but the native plants that are just dormant underground, they'll kind of hibernate in those.

And then the birds are coming forward, you know, in the wintertime when they, you know, there might be seed out for them, but they'll also eat those insects.

Okay.

So what type of birds?

What type of birds?

Warblers.

Obviously, you want them around.

But if you want if you want birds around your house for photography, what type of birds are people really interested in having around their house?

Warblers.

I know people always do Hummingbirds.

Yes, yes.

I see Blue bird feeders.

What other type of bird?

people like- You know, if you're talking about bird feeders like people love to see cardinals come to their bird feeders.

We often hear people come in saying they've been looking at the same cardinals year after year.

And, you know, people often will have house finches on their feeders.

Well, different types of sparrows, been known to come to feed as well, especially during the wintertime.

Where there's not that food abundant once all of the natural food sources have kind of gone away for the year, those feeders become really nice for wintering birds like our white throated sparrows and our white crown sparrows, which are only in our winter residence.

And they're kind of reliant on those feeders if, you know, they come to your yard.

Yeah, it's great.

It's fascinating.

I love this I love this show because we we get on here, we talk about all the birds that people want to attract.

And then we'll get questions on two or three birds that people want to keep away from your house.

So how do they keep them out of it?

It's it's one of those questions where everybody has a different level of fascination with wildlife.

And we get to talk about that today.

And obviously, we have a panel of experts here that made it their life's work to be in and around and study different animal species.

So we'll get a question about how to keep them away.

So get ready, keep yourself ready because that question it'll be coming.

Alright next question here is from Kate Lloyd from Facebook.

What is the peak season for monarch butterflies to be laying eggs in Kentucky.

I'm not seeing any in their backyard milkweed plants yet.

So this is a person who's actively attracting butterflies and they want to know about laying eggs for monarch butterflies.

Okay.

Yeah.

So monarchs can, of course, be laying eggs.

We have several generations that come through really once they get here in May to whenever the migration is starting kind of the end of this month, we can have egg laying monarchs all the way through then.

The peak season is really going to be kind of right now.

So anything we're in August right now, so any of the eggs that are laid right now are going to be part of that fourth generation that migrates to Mexico.

So if you're not seeing monarch butterflies on your milkweed plants right now, there's still a chance they could still be laying eggs into September, especially because we've had some pretty mild falls or kind of falls that have not gotten cold until a little bit later.

I've seen eggs in September.

I've seen caterpillars one year in early October.

And so a lot of it is a little bit weather dependent kind of how how much the fall comes in and how much things get colder.

But really, that peak season is kind of August, end of July, where monarch butterflies are laying eggs that are going to be part of that migratory generation, because we, of course, want a large migratory generation, because all of the monarchs have to make it through a lot of different obstacles during their migration.

So if you're not seeing them, it's not too late.

It still may happen.

Yeah.

Keep an eye on your- keep checking the milkweed.

All right.

Next question.

Craig Banks from Facebook.

How are snakes and spiders doing in eastern Kentucky with all the flooding that happened?

This is someone who I think is probably he wants to know that they're doing well, I hope.

But- snakes and spiders- wants to know about how that's doing.

And now that the water is down and human conditioning are bringing more of them out.

So how does the humidity and the water handle that?

Well, the snakes deal with the flooding pretty well.

They just kind of move up the hill.

Yeah.

And then they'll move back down again if they get washed downstream That's okay.

Yeah.

Spiders is a little bit different because they are really specific in their habitats.

So it probably- the flooding has probably impacted the spider population pretty hard in eastern Kentucky.

But hey, they lay a lot of eggs.

It doesn't take many spiders to bring them back.

So I would say the snakes are probably faring better than the spiders, though.

People don't want to hear that, of course.

Yeah.

Kara Couch.

How can I get more bats around my property?

This is someone who wants to see more bats around their property.

What type of bats would a person be seeing around their property and how could they attract more bats?

Well- Both of you guys I know deal with bats or something.

Yeah, I can go into this one.

So the most common bat species that you're going to see around your house is usually going to be a big brown bat.

You'll kind of see them easiest of you're looking up around dusk, around sunset, whenever- if you have like street lights, that sort of thing, they might be flying around because they're insect eaters.

So they're going to be going around those street lights that, you know, insects are attracted to they're going to want to eat those insects.

You can also see red bats.

And those are going to be, you know, especially if you're in an urban area, big brown bats, red bats.

Those are kind of some of our most common species that you're going to see as far as attracting bats to your house.

Of course, a lot of people want bats around their house, but not inside their house.

So just having as much as possible planting you know, native plants, the insects, you know, a diversity of native plants that insects are attracted to that's going to bring your bats in because then the bats have plenty of food to eat.

So they're looking for all those insects.

Also a water source.

I don't know that they really use like smaller bird baths, that sort of thing very much.

But if you have a pond or something like that, they will use people's swimming pools for better or worse.

But if you do have a swimming pool getting one of those little float things, with a ramp that if a bat or a frog or something like that gets in and you can kind of they can kind of get up out of a swimming pool or that sort of thing.

But yeah, for the- by and large native plants is going to be the best way to attract things.

Okay.

All right.

Jeff Coulter wants to know about black vultures.

Black vultures, wants to know if they're protected in Kentucky.

Now, black vultures, there are several different black vultures or excuse me, several different vulture species here in Kentucky.

Tell me a little bit about the species of vultures we have, how you tell them apart and then let's talk specifically about black vultures if they're protected.

Sure.

So there's two species of vultures in Kentucky and there's the black vulture.

The turkey vulture.

Okay.

Turkey vultures are the vultures going to see that have the redheads, the pinkish heads.

Black vultures have black heads.

If you ever see them flying pretty high up, turkey vultures are going to have along their wing kind of a white strip along the whole wing.

And then black vultures kind of have like silver hands.

You look at them and they're soaring.

Okay.

As far as I- repeat the question one more time.

Turkey vultures, tell me a little bit about turkey vultures and then are they protected.

Protection, yes.

So both turkey vultures and black vultures are protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act.

So that protects all native birds in Kentucky throughout the whole entire United States as well.

It makes it so you can't just go out and shoot a bird if it's, you know, you don't want it around your house or something like that.

It protects their eggs as well.

And it actually makes it so you can't actually collect their feathers.

So they're federally protected, both species are.

You know, vultures kind of get a little bit of a bad rep. And I know people, some people, especially with cattle, they've had problems with vultures and people have had problems with black vultures that- I've heard people talk about them getting on the roof and pecking at tar and doing some weird things like that.

But I will tell you, just two weeks ago, I've been smelling a lot of skunk.

So I guess it's skunk mating season potentially or possibly- i've been smelling skunk.

And a skunk got hit in my front yard and I was was gone for the next day.

I saw those those vultures, not black vultures, but vultures.

And they, it was, it went from unbearable.

You couldn't be you couldn't be in the front yard to completely cleaned up.

I literally mowed over that spot three or four days later and could barely smell it.

Yeah, they do you quite a service.

Thank goodness for Vultures.

It literally was running me out of my front yard to cleaned up.

I mean, think about what this would be like, what it would be like around here with the number of animals that hit on the highways and animals that die without vultures.

So they kind of get a bad rap.

Thank God we got them.

Yeah, absolutely.

The next question here is from David Spalding.

Are Whip-poor-will numbers falling.

I haven't heard one in several years.

We get this every year at this this show.

Who wants to talk a little bit about what happened?

Well, so Whip-poor-will is, you know, throughout their entire range are declining.

And in Kentucky, we are especially looking at after that, we have a survey that we do every year to kind of keep track of their numbers.

Whip-poor-will's, they really like kind of forested habitat with almost no understory, so really open forest.

And, you know, with invasives coming into our forest systems, we're seeing less of that kind of open understory forests.

So that's partially driving decline as well as a number of other factors like, you know, insect declines and stuff.

But yet overall, we are seeing a decline and the fact that they're not seeing them.

Other property might be a reflection of that.

Now a whip-poor-will, all birds, they nest different ways.

But whip-poor-will's are actually, they nest on the ground.

They do.

Yes.

So that's a that's a species of bird that even though they like to be in the heavy, heavy canopy forests they're on the ground.

Yes, it seems like that would make them pretty susceptible to predation.

It can.

And if you look at their nest, they're often really camouflaged.

The eggs are very, you know, hard to find, you know, if you're out there looking for them You have a really tough time finding them.

Okay.

All right.

Next question here is about snakes.

Patrick Barry wants to know how many venomous snake species are found in Kentucky?

We have four kinds of venomous snakes.

The copperhead is just about statewide.

It's not common in the bluegrass, but they're probably in every county.

Even though we have some bluegrass counties with no records like Scott, Bourbon, you know, those counties.

But the Timber Rattlesnake is nearly statewide, but absent from the bluegrass.

Then we have the cottonmouth, which a true water moccasin, which is in swamps in western Kentucky only, and it's fairly rare in the state.

And then the pygmy rattlesnake, which is known from just two counties, Trigg and Calloway, and it seems to have disappeared from Trigg.

We haven't had a record there since the year 2000.

So, Southeast Calloway is about the only place still has it, it has all four species, by the way.

Okay, so if you want to live among them, venomous snakes move to New Concord in Calloway.

Calloway County.

That's the place to go.

And if you don't want to be around, snakes- I'll never forget.

A couple of years ago you told me that there was a county that had never had a record of a venomous snake.

That's not saying they're not there.

Yeah.

Scott, Bourbon, Spencer.

Shelby?

Shelby.

Okay.

Never had a venomous snake record.

Now, they may be there, but we need a photograph of one to confirm.

Okay, so those are your counties right here, Scott, Shelby, Spencer- remember, If starts with an "S" it has no snakes.

They're not here in Kentucky.

Oh, there are a couple more.

Grant's another one.

Yeah.

Okay.

Very interesting.

It's it's really wild how little little changes can can mean there's zero snakes.

And then you have such a huge population.

Copperheads are very common in Kentucky.

Scott County has plenty of snakes.

It's just none of them are venomous.

Not venomous snakes.

Yeah.

All right.

Now don't feel cheated If you live in Scott county.

The snakes are there.

Yeah.

Nathan Rowe here wants to know, is the monarch butterfly now endangered?

I've heard that it was, but I've also heard that it's not.

So what?

Give me the update on the monarch butterfly.

Yeah.

So that has been probably one of the most common questions I've gotten over the last month.

The confusion there between the monarch butterfly being endangered or not, it is actually not federally endangered.

So there's not been a there's not been a change in the United States federal listing status of the monarch butterfly where this confusion is coming from is that the IUCN, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.

So that's kind of an international organization.

And they they kind of keep a what's called the IUCN Red List.

And on that red list, the monarch has now been listed as endangered.

And so that is something that is used to look at species all over the world.

So there's kind of a whole slew of biodiversity.

And this ranking system ranks how these species are doing.

So that organization has looked at the data as far as the monarch butterfly goes, and also keeping in mind that they are only talking about the Eastern Monarch butterfly in the US, the one that migrates because Western monarchs only migrate to California so they don't make as large of a migration.

But there's also another just general ranking for the monarch butterfly, that is the global monarch butterfly for the IUCN Red List.

And that has not been changed to endangered.

So not the general monarch butterfly.

Not the monarch butterfly.

As far as our federal listing, but only on the IUCN Red List is the monarch butterfly.

And I can I can see how Nathan was confused.

Yes.

All right.

Next question is from Brandon Williams.

Hey, this is a this is an interesting question.

And the question is about what is the difference between a hellbender and a mud puppy?

And interestingly enough, we spent the day, three of us here was in the field yesterday doing something really cool here in Kentucky that pertain to the Hellbender.

Tell us, first off, what what is a hellbender and a mud puppy?

Well, a Hellbender is a large aquatic salamander.

And you have a model right there.

Yeah.

Showing what one looks like.

i don't know if I can get this out of here or not.

It's a very large, wrinkly salamander that lives on the bottom of a river or stream, usually hiding under rocks or in crevices.

And these hellbender is get good size like 27, 28 inches.

No external gills.

a really flat head.

wrinkles fold along the side.

A mud puppy is smaller.

It has tight fitting, smooth skin.

It has external red gills which come out just on the neck there.

It's much more common and it's considerably smaller than a hellbender.

These are really cool, really cool animals.

And interestingly enough, Kentucky Wild is helping to fund a project that's taking place here in Kentucky.

And yesterday, what did we do, Michaela?

We were actually out releasing 25 held benders into a creek.

So we did kind of our first Hellbender release as part of this program that's been going on for over four years now.

We are collecting eggs from populations of Hellbenders that we are aware of in the state, which isn't very many.

And then those are getting reared up by some of our partners into kind of not fully adult hellbenders but you know close to.

Hellbenders take 5 to 6 sometimes more years to reach full maturity.

But we're putting kind of more than just these eggs we're putting hellbenders that are about this big, five or six inches long back out into some of these areas where we're hoping that they will kind of bump up the population of Hellbenders.

Really cool species.

to the people who have spent their life flipping over rocks in creeks and streams may have never seen one.

Yes.

I've never seen one in the wild until yesterday when we released them.

And it was a really cool experience to go out to return 25 of these back into a creek.

And this is an ongoing project.

It's going to take place over several years, right?

Working with Purdue University, we filmed the whole thing.

It's going to be a segment on Kentucky AField.

So if you're interested in learning more about these really cool aquatic salamanders, make sure you tune into Kentucky AField here in a few weeks and you'll see us putting some of these back.

But what a cool project.

This is a very long, long lived salamander.

Or is it not?

How many years can these things last in the wild?

They can live up to 30 years.

Yeah, that's amazing to me.

Think about something like that.

Living under a rock.

This is a perfect time to talk about what you brought here.

You actually have- you have a salamander with you there.

Tell us what you've got.

Well, this guy is a- this is our largest our largest terrestrial salamander.

Okay.

And this is an Eastern Tiger salamander.

These guys are found in western Kentucky from about Shelbyville, West.

And a really big one might be 10, 11 inches long.

They live underground.

They come out in the spring and they travel to a usually a farm pond where they court and they lay their eggs and then they go right back to the burrow they came out of and go back underground.

And you don't see them again until the next year.

Wow.

But they do sometimes come out and wander around on rainy nights.

What do they feed on primarily?

They feed on grasshoppers, crickets, grubs, earthworms, any kind of insects, spider.

Anything smaller than they are.

They will eat small snakes.

They will eat baby mice.

They're pretty slow species.

Looked like they probably use their camouflage and ambush.

Is that how they- Well, they live in- they live underground in burrows.

Okay.

So they have pretty bright colors for a salamander.

And that's kind of a warning color because they do have skin secretions that are very bad tasting to a predator.

Okay.

So hardly anything will eat one of these.

A garter snake will eat one or a hog nosed snake or maybe a mud snake.

And that's about it.

Okay.

So, you know, most predators just can't handle this, but this guy is less than two years old.

okay.

He was a larva in a drying pond out in Christian County and was rescued by a friend of mine.

And so he gave me the larva.

I raised it.

And so.

Yeah.

So you've had it for two years.

How long did it how long do these species live?

These have lived in captivity for 50 years.

Wow.

In a zoo.

So, and I'm not going to live 50 years, so I don't know what's going to happen.

But i hope i can talk to the Salato Center into keeping tiger salamanders that's a real- it's really cool now does this particular species that would lose its tail and regrow its tail if needed?

not very well.

You know, they they can regenerate their tails a little bit.

But most of our salamanders, if they lose their tail, a new one starts growing right away.

Okay.

It's kind've a big bodied salamander.

Yeah, this is in the mole salamander group.

And these salamanders have lungs.

And most of the salamanders that live in Kentucky that you find in the woods or long creeks are lungless salamanders.

Okay.

It's a whole family that they have no lungs.

So if you can you can sit down and go - *exhale* -You can do something that a lungless salamander will never be able to do.

So.

Well, that's cool.

Thank you for bringing that in here.

So when their wives get exasperated, they can't just go -*exhale*.

I'm sure.

If that's a male, he's probably very happy for that fact.

You know, actually, I think this is a male, but we're not going to get into that.

Yeah.

All right.

Next question is from Brad Hardesty.

Thanks for thanks for bringing that John.

What species of tree frogs are in Kentucky and how can i attract more tree frogs to their property?

We have a number of tree frog species, bird voiced, barking, green tree frog.

And those are in western Kentucky.

And we have the common one across the state is a Cope's gray tree frog and they are everywhere, including in urban areas, and they can breed in rain gutters, rain barrels, swimming pools.

just a bit.

But they, they normally lay eggs in ditches, road ruts, and they're even still breeding now.

They'll call after rain.

if you want to attract them, you need a water source where they can lay eggs.

Okay.

Yeah, they can breed in swimming pools.

You know, or wading pools.

You need to have trees and shrubs that the adults can live in.

They do pretty well everywhere.

They're really common across the state.

Okay.

So they're doing they're doing very well.

They're doing really well.

Okay.

Very cool.

So to attract them, you need a water source and some trees.

Yep.

All right.

What should you do if you find a bat in your house?

So we've talked about one to attract more bats.

Now, if you actually get one in your house, what's the best way to handle that?

If you find a bat that's inside your house, the easiest way to try to get it out is just kind of like you would do with some other animals opening the window.

If you can shut the door, like if it's an enclosed room, you can shut the door to that room, open the window, turn the light off.

Just kind of leave it alone for a while.

I've had luck when people just have called me being able to do that, shutting the door and opening the window and the bat will fly out if the bat does not go anywhere.

The most important thing to remember with bats in your house is don't grab them or don't just touch them with their bare hands or pick them up.

It's rare, but there is that risk of rabies there.

So if you can get kind of a cardboard box, slide it, put it over the bat, slide cardboard under it, take it outside that way, make sure you're wearing gloves, just, you know, on the off chance that something happens.

But a way that you can kind of indirectly handle the bat and put it outside.

once you get it outside, if there's anywhere like a higher porch or something that you have or a tree, obviously without handling it, that you can put the bat on so it can fly off.

It's a little bit hard for them to take off from the ground.

So people will put them on the ground and then they'll have trouble taking off and then they'll get really worried that there's something wrong with the bat or that it's sick and needs to go to a rehab.

It's usually just because it needs that little bit of a higher area so that it can take off.

Okay.

All right.

There you go.

So you want to close off other areas of the house?

What about you know, I don't know anything about bats, but if I had a bat and got into a room with the house, I know that they come out in dark.

If you opened up a window and turned on light, would that maybe try to push it away or would that not affect it at all?

Like with the light on instead of off?

Yeah, inside the room to try to make it unsuitable area for that for that bat.

Yeah, it possibly could.

I don't know.

I've usually I've had people do it kind of the opposite where it's been during the day.

So and the bat has either managed to fly out during the day or they would fly out kind of once it becomes dark.

But yeah, that could be an option is trying to just a little bit of disturbance to where they're no longer comfortable in that room.

without touching the animal and try to try to- definitely turn the ceiling fan off though.

If you have one of those.

when they get stressed they'll kind of circle around similar to a ceiling fan people will find that you know they'll look at it about circling and they'll think oh my gosh it's threatening me.

But they're just the bats also stressed and just circling the room trying to find an exit.

So turn off the fan so that it's not going to bump into it.

And get your video camera out.

Don't run into the center of the room because the bat will be switching back and forth so stay along the wall.

Oh, there you go.

There you go.

There's there's how you get it done right there.

Next question from Jay Coates.

Are barn owls showing better numbers in the state?

So barn owls, barn owl is something we've had a program going on for a couple of years and this happened to be a year where we're trying to gather some information on barn owls.

Is that right?

Yeah, that's correct.

This is our year of the triennial barn owl survey.

So we go statewide and we try to inventory the entire population of barn owls throughout Kentucky and throughout the state.

They are doing much better than they have been historically.

We actually have been tracking their progress with these surveys and they, you know, the number of nesting pairs and even just lone individuals is increasing year after year.

And it's been a huge effort by the department.

So initially when we found a pair of barn owls that maybe were nesting in a precarious spot, we would be putting up nest boxes for them.

And throughout and over the years, we put up over 200 nest boxes just to try to create more habitat for them to be safely nesting, to produce more young, to increase that population even further.

So now we go out and we check those nest boxes.

And I actually brought my little camera here.

So we go in those nest boxes and we can stick this camera up there on a painter's pole.

We have another little monitor that we use and we can pretty, pretty easily just kind of peek inside that nest box, count all of the chicks kind of see how old they are, and it's very minimally invasive.

We don't stress a lot more than we have to to get those numbers.

And then, you know, we can come back later.

And if the chicks are old enough to put leg bands on them, you know, these little aluminum bands, each one has a unique number on it, just like the Monarch Tags did.

So if we Find That Bird later, we can see where it came from.

Get an idea of how old it is.

Look at the survival of just individuals of the species throughout Kentucky.

Barn owls look much different.

You're not going to you're not going to confuse a barn owl with other species here in the state of Kentucky.

They look very, very different than other owls.

Tell me a little bit about if you see an owl that has what characteristics of barn owls, their face looks totally different.

Yeah.

So barn owls have like a very heart shaped face, a very white face usually as well.

They're often very white or kind of like a buffy, tan-ish brown color.

And, you know, we think of owls, what we think of like great horned owls and barred owls, which will hoot at night barn owl's don't hoot they kind of just have this kind of, you know, shrieking scream to them.

It's very unnerving.

If you get out in the dark, you hear it and you know, and we're actively looking for them.

So if folks have them nesting, you know, in a barn at their house or, you know, in an old grain silo that they don't use anymore.

Please give us a call, email the department, let us know.

And we love to come, you know, to check up on them.

So you can reach the department by calling one 1-800-858-1549 and let someone know, Hey, I'd like to talk to someone about a barn owl.

I think I have one and they'll get in contact with you guys, right?

yes.

So you said we put out 200 nest boxes for barn owls.

What percentage of those are being used?

I don't have the exact number in my head.

It's that most of them that we've checked this year, more often than not seem to be occupied or have been occupied.

We can go up there, we can look in there in the box, and there's those pellets that the owls produce.

So if someone's been roosting in there, if they didn't lay eggs and have a family, at least.

So that's been very successful for the most birds.

If there if there's a barn owl there, it's very hard for them to hide their their activity because they're pretty messy, aren't they?

They are, yeah.

If you have one around your barn, you'll know there'll be little, you know, grayish brown pellets everywhere.

What do you call those pellets?

The pellets are whatever they couldn't digest, they literally cough them back up.

And that pellet is exactly how you tell if you got a barn owl.

Right.

If you've got a couple of those, there's been a barn owl.

Yeah.

Just matted fur full of bones.

That's a barn owl.

Very, very cool.

All right.

Next question we have is is about bald eagles.

Ryan Wermeling wants to know how the bald eagle members are doing across the state.

Once again, bald eagles doing great.

We have a survey both nesting and a wintering survey actually brought a few figures because everyone loves graphs.

These are the wintering bald eagle population numbers going all the way back from 1961 and you can just see how much better they're doing throughout the state.

So it's been a pretty steady uphill climb.

The population.

And then we're actually seeing it kind of taper off a little bit.

So kind of hit that carrying capacity that we call it.

There's just not habitat for more birds.

So they're doing really, really well, especially, you know, after DDT was banned, we could just see that population skyrocket.

And then we also do a an occupied nesting survey every year.

It's the same thing.

We're seeing more and more nesting pairs every year throughout the state.

Man, I tell you what, it seems like I've seen thousand about every county I've been in.

It's- I mean, not owls, bald eagle's just about every county I've been in.

They're statewide, they're all over the place.

And they're, like I said, doing wonderful.

It's amazing how how they are doing and it still, you know, even though you see them quite frequently now, it's still a really cool sight every time you look up and you see a bald eagle as such, it's such a beautiful bird.

Yeah, absolutely.

All right.

Our next question is from Steve Consley wants to know what is the state's rarest mammal, rarest, but not extinct?

What what's the state's rarest mammal?

And don't say bigfoot.

I won't say that.

I would say would be the rock shrew or the long tailed shrew, which is a a tiny little shrew with a really long tail that's only known from areas along the north side of Pine Mountain.

Okay.

In south eastern Kentucky.

Okay.

So- It's known from a few locations.

what do they look like?

You know, they look like any other long tailed shrew.

They're kind of dark gray with a pointy snout and and a long tail.

They live in boulder talus.

So places on the north side of Pine Mountain where the rock is cracked off and form these we call them boulder fields with big trees growing out of them.

And that's the kind of place where you find long tail shrews.

John, you've been a herpetologist here in the state of Kentucky for many years.

Is there is there a particular animal species you're like, man, I still I've looked I've spent a lot of time looking for it.

Before my career is over, there's one particular species that may have eluded you that you want to get hands on in the wild.

But my nemesis is the scarlet snake.

It's a scarlet snake.

It's a small, red, black and white snake with a pearly white belly.

I found dead ones, but I've never found a live one.

Okay, and that's for you, for a person who's out looking for snakes quite frequently- I've been looking for scarlet snakes since I was in high school.

Really?

So if someone gets a gets a scarlet snake and gets a photo of it.

You probably want to know about it, huh?

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

We got a photo of one last year that it was in a swimming pool in northern Christian County.

And I'm thinking if only I'd moved to Christian County and bought that house, I could have found a scarlet snake in my swimming pool.

John MacGregor's nemesis is the Scarlet Snake.

People find them in Land Between the Legs driving the roads at night.

But when I drive the roads at night at Land Between the Lakes, I find copperheads.

I like copperheads, but they're not scarlet.

So yeah, you've probably seen thousands of those in your career.

You want to see a scarlet snake.

I hopefully.

Hopefully, we can make that happen.

We'll find one more these days.

The next next person.

Robert Howells wants to know what happened to the number of Nighthawks in Kentucky.

So Nighthawks are nightjar, just like our common whip-poor-wills, chuck-wills-widows.

And they're experiencing decline as well.

They're still fairly common.

If you go to a parking lot at night, you can see them flying around those big lights, eating insects.

So all over the world, we're seeing declines in insects.

And following that, we're seeing declines in most birds that eat insects.

So Nighthawks are following that same trend where they're just slightly declining.

Oh, okay.

All right.

Courtney Hays, what do non migratory butterfly species do during the winter and where do they go?

So our non migratory butterfly species are generally going to spend the winter either as a caterpillar or a chrysalis.

And so if you think about, you know, of course, something like the monarch or a Painted Lady, some of our other migrating butterflies, they're headed to either Mexico, Florida, South Texas, that sort of thing.

The viceroy, that's really similar to the monarch.

A lot of people get them confused.

It will actually spend the winter as either a first or second instar caterpillar.

So basically their first live stage is a caterpillar or their next one after they've molted and they will roll up in a leaf and that is how they will spend the winter.

Oh, wow.

Yeah.

So they, they feed on willow tree.

So it's usually going to be a leaf of their host plant that they're going to be rolled up in.

So that's kind of one of those things where people will say, oh, leave the leaves or leave some of the leaves in your yard over winter.

Like everybody kind of wants to get in their garden and and clean things up and bag up the leaves.

But if you can kind of leave some of that area, kind of like Michael was talking about earlier with some of the dead grasses and stalks, that's really good for a lot of our insects that might be overwintering in that garden that aren't migrating south.

So what if you like the topic of tonight's show is we're talking all about the animal and fish species that we don't specifically go hunt, trap or fish for.

Then this shows for you, this is what Kentucky Wild is really was generated for to put more emphasis and more focus on these particular species.

So that's why Kentucky Wild was generated it's a way for you to buy that annual license to know that those dollars are going to help these particular animal species.

So if you're interested in this type of thing, make sure you get you an annual membership to Kentucky Wild and that that membership is right now on sale for for $35 for a limited time.

And if you do that, you actually get a T-shirt just like this one here Michaela is wearing.

You can see that we've also got Michael's got last year or couple of years shirt on.

You got one that I haven't even seen out yet that I think these are available at the state fair right now this particular t shirt and or you can get these hats that are that are also produced by country boy brewery.

Country Boy Brewery.

And this is the Kentucky Wild Hats.

These just came out this week.

I think they're also available at the state fair.

Or you can go fw.ky.gov/kywild All right, let's get back to our questions here, Jonathan Carol, can you tell the difference in a in a venomous and non-venomous snake, by the way they swim?

I've heard this a million times about head high or head not high.

Yes and no.

Okay.

Our venomous snakes are heavier bodied and they're more buoyant.

So they tend to ride up in the water and they tend to hold their heads up out of the water.

Okay.

But not always.

I mean, a rat snake or a racer will also hold its head up out of the water.

So don't go grab a snake because it's right on, right on the- And if with water snakes, they usually swim with their head right on the surface.

Well, cottonmouth or a copperhead, a rattlesnake will have have maybe that much neck up out of the water, but not always.

And, and copperheads and cottonmouth will sometimes swim right on the surface or even dive.

Okay.

So you want to make sure that you don't use that as your tool and whether or not you're going to try to pick one up.

Be sure you know what it is before you grab it.

Yeah, I like to grab water snakes and get bitten by them, but, you know, not everybody enjoys that.

I, I've seen they can be pretty aggressive.

Water snakes are aggressive.

You grab one, it's probably going to bite you.

That's not being aggressive.

That's defending yourself.

Well, yeah, but- if we have a stand your ground law won't the water snakes follow that, right?

Yeah.

They stand their ground.

If you do have one, they're going to stand their ground.

All right.

Next question is Shane Young.

How common are the eastern Hercules beetle in Kentucky and how can you find them?

I don't even know what this is.

So who knows anything about that?

It's a large green- the males are greenish.

They're about that big and they've got horns on them.

They're really neat.

It's I think it's our largest scarab beetle and they're pretty common, but you just don't ever see them.

Okay.

I find the the grubs are if you find a grub that's as big around as your little finger inside- you know in the ground at the base of a rotting log or right under a rotting log, that's going to be a Hercules beetle grub.

I suppose you could raise your own.

I have seen these before and I didn't know what that was called, but they're pretty good sized and they've got the horns and they're kind of green with black dots on the back some?

Yeah.

The females don't have horns.

Okay.

Okay.

But the males battle each other for, you know, for the love of a woman.

Oh, we've caught them in Bat mist nets before.

Oh really?

stretching out a net in a forest corridor or over a stream.

We've caught the beetle in the net and then have to untangle it from there.

So that's not super practical for everybody looking for them, but that's one way that we've seen them.

You know, the places I've seen them tend to be like at a house that people don't live at all the time on the lake, you know, the lights on.

And they hit the screen and they're on the screen doors where I've seen them a couple of times.

They come they come to street lights.

So one of my worst experiences with Cumberland Falls and I was walking around a parking lot photographing insects and a big Hercules beetle hit the street light, landed just ten feet away from me.

And this guy stepped out of his car and he just takes his foot and bong.

Just smashed it.

I was furious.

Oh, yeah.

What a beautiful creature.

Really, really cool looking beetle.

Now that I know what it is.

I didn't know that's what they were called.

Next question, Brian Jenkins, are certain venomous snake bites worse than others or are they all the same?

And I guess there's kind of keep it to the Kentucky Venomous snakes.

Yes, they are not all the same.

And I have researched deaths from Snake Bite in Kentucky and since 1960 there have been six.

All of them have been timber rattlesnakes, all of them have been in snake handling churches during services.

So we have not had in at least 50 years, we've not had a death from a wild venomous snake bite in the state.

We've never had a copperhead death in Kentucky from snake bite or a cottonmouth and a pygmy rattlesnake bite is probably about similar to a copperhead.

It's it's going to be extremely painful.

It's going to there's going to be swelling.

There may be tissue damage, seek medical attention.

But it's not it's not you're not going to die from a copperhead or pygmy rattlesnake.

But everyone's heard the term dry, dry bite.

Does that exist?

And you don't want to take a chance on that, right?

No, you don't.

But, you know, a snakes venom is is to to get food.

And, you know, it affects birds, mammals, and it breaks down their tissue.

So but most snakes, most venomous snakes, if they have an irritating or irritating "ahh, let go me" they will deliver often a dry bite.

They don't want to waste the venom on something they can't eat because then when they when a squirrel comes along or a mouse, they might not have enough venom to kill.

So about half the bites are dry bites unless you're really tormenting the snake, you know, if you injure the snake or you cut its head off and the head bites you, it's going to pump every every fluid ounce of venom it has right into you.

Okay.

So don't don't take a chance on being the 50% that got a dry bite, seek medical attention.

Right.

And if you're walking around at night in the woods carry a flashlight, watch where you step.

Don't wear flip flops, don't go barefooted, you know?

All right.

There you go.

You heard it.

Next question's from Kristen Barnette.

What is each of the panelist's favorite animal in the state?

All right.

We're going to start down there.

You got to tell us, what's your favorite animal in the state?

Oh, that's that's a difficult question right now.

I probably would have to say the Golden Ringed Warbler.

We have a project in eastern Kentucky right now kind of tracking them, trying to figure out what's going on with their population and so on.

They're just taking up a lot of my brain space right now.

Okay.

Well, and that's a that's an animal species that you get to work with.

It is.

Yeah.

So as a wildlife biologist, we just asked John, you know, you're kind of newer in your career and is there animal species that you would say, man, before my career is over, I would like to work with what species?

Oh, that's a great question as well.

I have a, you know, a fond place in my heart for the yellow billed cuckoo.

I'd love to do something with them.

Oh, they're actually going to be listed in the State Wildlife Action Plan revision as a species in the greatest conservation need.

So they're, you know, declining.

So we like to know what's happening with their population.

So hopefully in the future I will get to work with them and.

Okay, what species is that?

It's a yellow billed cuckoo.

Okay.

They're a pretty large songbird.

They're about like 150 grams.

So they get pretty big, really bright white tails that has this kind of lattering pattern in it.

They're very beautiful if you ever see them.

Okay.

All right, very cool.

Michaela, what's your what's your favorite animal species and what species do you want to work with before you retire?

My favorite animal species.

Wow.

Okay.

So I think my favorite animal species, other than, of course, the monarch, I really like the big eared bats that we have in Kentucky.

I mean, they've just got these huge ears.

There's the Virginia big-eared bat, the Rafinesque's big-eared bat.

They are really fascinating to me.

I've worked with this species a little bit as far as the one species that I would like to work with.

They're just not nearly as common anymore.

It's the northern long eared bat.

And John would probably laugh at this because, you know, they used to be extremely common and all over the place and and their numbers are just, you know, much further down than they used to be.

But that is one species that I hope to do a little bit more work with and just kind of see on the landscape or in caves little bit more because we really just don't see them nearly as often.

All right.

Well, we know that you want to- you want to hold a scarlet snake.

Tell me your favorite animal species.

my favorite animal is is the copperhead.

Okay.

I love the coloration.

No two of them look alike.

They blend in with the forest floor.

They eat anything.

Yes, cicadas caterpillars, moths, mice, other snakes, anything.

They're just great snakes.

Very cool.

And it makes my day any time I find a copperhead.

When is the next big the big hatch of cicadas coming?

Because I know the copperheads I've seen that they that they they do eat on cicadas when is the next?

What they eat- the copperheads eat the the annual cicadas the ones that are singing now that the nymphs come out of the ground usually in July and August, the the periodical cicadas that come out by the billions, they came out come out in May and the copperheads aren't really tuned to those.

Okay.

Because they're every 13 years or every 17 years.

So when is our next big, big in Kentucky?

I'm thinking it's a year after next, but I'm not.

It depends on what part of the state you're in.

Like this year.

It was a we had a big cicada emergence along the Ohio River from northern Kentucky to Louisville.

Okay.

I think I think in the bluegrass it's going to be year after next.

I'd have to look that up.

It's all mapped out.

Okay.

All right.

And it looks like this is going to be our last question here is from Stacey Perry wants to know what's the best part of our jobs?

I mean, my job is it's so unique in the fact that, you know, one day we're out here dealing with hellbenders and then we're in a cave and then we're turning over tents.

We may be hunting or fishing.

We're all pretty lucky.

And you said something a while ago that- I remember being in a cave.

We went and looked at it, looked at some caves somewhere in Carter County I do believe, and I asked you the question, why bats?

And you had gotten into wildlife biology, and I'm sure you've been picking up snakes since you were a little boy.

I know you've told me stories about that, but you got into wildlife biology with no real plans to get- study bats, right?

That's correct.

You you were you were not planning on working with bats, but there was a job opening.

And lo and behold, now you're telling me your favorite animal species is the bat, the one the one species you want to work with for your retire is a bat.

So that tells you if you love animals and you want to you want to learn more about animals, you know, follow follow your passions and get involved in and studying biology and do wildlife biology because you never know.

You might be that person up here ten years from now saying snakes are your favorite species and you just want to be working with snakes.

You just never know.

You never would have thought 15 years ago you'd been saying, I want to work with bats for the rest of my life.

Yeah.

And hear you say so.

It's really amazing.

So what what's the best part about your job?

Because you get to work with birds and raptors and things like that.

That's really cool.

Yeah, honestly, the best part is just working with those birds, you know, going out there, banding chicks, capturing songbirds and you know, just doing all these different research that actually goes on and, you know, influences management to help, you know, conserve these birds.

You know, a lot of them are declining and we can do anything about that.

That's that's the best part of my job, is trying to help them out.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

Well, I'll tell you what.

I hope you learn something tonight.

I know I did.

And I always learn something here on these Kentucky Wild Call in shows.

Hey, if you're looking for a good reason to get outdoors, squirrel season is in right now and Dove season will be open on September the first, followed by Deer archery season on September the third.

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.

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