Hello and welcome to Kentucky Afield.

I'm your host, Chad Miles.

Join us as we journey the Commonwealth in search of outdoor adventure.

Are you dealing with cabin fever?

Well good news.

Spring turkey season is right around the corner.

Or if you want to get the entire family involved, think about hitting the Salato Wildlife Education Center.

But first, we're going to hit the woods for a nighttime coyote hunt.

Well I'm super excited to be out here tonight.

I'm gonna try my luck with a little bit of nighttime coyote hunting.

There's so much dedicated gear to be out here, and this is a perfect time of year to do it.

It's February.

It's cold out.

It█s right before the breeding season for coyotes.

And hopefully they're already out and about because coyotes are nighttime scavengers and hunters.

Now, coyote hunting here in the state of Kentucky can be done day or night, year round.

But if you're going to use any type of means to illuminate a field or to help make any wildlife visible in a field like what I'm using tonight, which is an infrared scope or a thermal scope or any other type of light, it has to be done during a limited season.

Hopefully I can get out here and get set up, use some coyote vocalizations, get a coyote interested, get them in range and hopefully get a shot.

Looky there.

Now, I don't know if a coyote is responsible for killing this deer, but it's obvious that a coyote has drug this leg of this deer out here.

I'll tell you what I deer hunt this place quite a bit.

So, I have no love for the coyote.

All right.

Let's start out with a female invitation.

Chad right there.

There's one in the field at 1:00.

All right, here we go.

I don't know.

It came in to the right.

I tried to get on it.

I got down right where I thought it was at.

And when I finally saw the coyote I shot.

I don't know what happened.

It may have been a clean miss.

Oh, man.

Well I looked all over for that coyote and I guess it missed.

The good news is it's early.

And I got time for another set.

This is a spot that I like.

It's mainly because of the way the field is crowned where I can see all the way across the field.

So I█m going to get the call set up, tuck back in these woods, get set up on the bipod, give it a try.

All right.

We█re going to start out here with a couple of female howls.

Try to see if we got anything in the area.

All right, now I'm going to move to the yipping coyotes.

Oh, that was a bark, that was a coyote bark and it sounded like it's...

There it is again.

I should be able to see this coyote.

There he is.

I got him.

I got him.

I got him.

He's barking.

The coyote█s moving to the left.

But I think I█ll still get a shot.

Oh, man, I don't see the coyote.

That's a that's a little further than I was wanting to shoot tonight, but it barked soon as I made a call.

I wasn't expecting it to be so fast.

I hope I got a coyote down.

Lets go take a look.

There he is right there.

Sure enough.

Oh, my gosh.

Well, I can tell you, this is not how I expected this to go down.

You know, you might see a coyote one every three or four times you set up.

This time I came out and put the call out, put a female howl out there and literally waited a minute.

And before I even got to put my next call out, I heard a bark.

This coyote was right on me.

It was literally 200 yards away.

And when that happened, I got an opportunity to see that thing actually barking on camera.

I see it carrying on.

It gave me enough time to get down, try to get a really good shot.

Thank God I was on my bipod and my shooting sticks.

I got down, I was on a knee and was able to put this coyote down.

And I'll be honest with you, until I walked through this field and saw this coyote, I wasn't sure I'd hit it.

My first nighttime coyote with the new rifle season here in Kentucky now it█s been in for a couple of years.

What a cool experience.

One more coyote off this piece of property.

Hopefully this is good for my deer, my turkey, my rabbits and everything else.

I'm going to get my gear and this coyote and get it picked up and get it out of the field.

And I'm going to be looking at my calendar and trying to look and see when I can get back out here and do this again.

Now is the time to get that shotgun out.

And get it patterned for the spring turkey season.

It comes in this year on April the 12th.

And it will be here before you know it.

Well it is May.

We are turkey hunting.

This year the season come in late.

You can tell by how green everything is.

This is a very late turkey hunt.

Probably not going to hear much gobbling and be lucky if we see a strutting tom.

But that doesn't mean you still can't hunt these turkeys.

I'd love to get another bird.

I got one this year.

I got a tag left, I am going to set up in an area where I've been seeing a bunch of turkeys.

We're going to do some light calling, but you got to be ready to go at any point in time.

And you got to tag in your pocket.

One to burn.

I can't let the season go out.

I got to give it one more shot.

So hopefully we can get a bird today.

Weather turned out to be perfect for a field hunt.

I got a lot of sun.

We've got some wind.

So we thought we can set up on a place that I'm pretty familiar with we hunted last year.

Kill him right there.

Raise his head.

And we've hunted at numerous hunts this season and never got a chance to take one.

But this is a great location where these turkeys walk the field edges right of the woods, right to this point.

So we're set up.

Got two decoys out and hopefully big tom comes slipping by.

Oh my God.

There's a gobble not 60 or 70 yards away.

Okay there he is.

There he is.

He definitely a gobbler.

I was not expecting to hear a gobble this afternoon.

He's way more interested in filling his belly than he is our decoys right now.

He is in range.

I just got to get the perfect shot opportunity.

When he goes behind this tree I got to move.

I got him now.

Oh.

Now he is behind tree.

All right, I got him.

On my God.

What?

It's middle of the day.

We just set our decoys up thinking.

Oh, it's going to be a beautiful afternoon hunt.

I'm checking my phone.

Haven't made a call.

And a gobble right there.

We haven't heard a gobble in two weeks.

This is like a good long beard.

I mean, it was dragging beard coming through there.

I'm excited to go take a look.

Oh, man.

Wow.

Look at this beard.

Tell you what...

This is a full grown, mature bird.

We hadn't heard any gobbles in a long time we thought we'll set up in their travel corridor and we know they've been roosting.

Hopefully we can intersect them.

I didn't think they were going to come through at 2:00 in the afternoon.

And thank goodness this joker gobbled and let us know he was coming.

Finally came in and gave us the shot.

Were able to put this bird down.

I'll tell you what later on in the year.

It's all about persistence and knowing those travel zones.

I want to give special thanks to the Hurst Farm for allowing us to come out here and chase these turkeys.

We have had a blast and I'm looking forward to getting this bird home, getting it cleaned up, get it on the table.

The Salato Wildlife Education Center in Frankfort, Kentucky, opens up this spring on Tuesday, March the 11th.

It's a great place to take the family to learn all about Kentucky's outdoors.

Salato is wildlife education center located here in Frankfort, Kentucky.

It was established by the Department of Fish and Wildlife 25 years ago to educate the public about hunting, fishing, and outdoor conservation.

Here at the center, we see about 55,000 people annually from Kentucky and across the United States.

Salato wildlife education Center is a small zoo setting that has Kentucky native animals only.

It's a place where people can come and see these animals up close in a safe environment, and learn more about their natural histories.

What people like about coming here is any questions that they need to know or inquiring, you know, they're getting informed of.

And so they leave here with more education concerning the animals.

We care for over 300 animals here at the center.

People can expect to see bear, bobcats, eagle, turtles, frogs, snakes, elk, deer, bison, turkeys.

Just a wide variety of Kentucky native animals.

The center is open from March through November to the public, but animal care is here 365 days a year taking care of the animals.

We do training, enrichments, health checks, feeding, cleaning and medication.

These are just some of the things we do on a daily basis.

One of the very first things I do when I come to work each morning is drive around and check on all the animals and make sure everybody seems healthy.

Make sure all the fences are intact.

It looks like everybody's standing up grazing.

Everybody looks good.

All four of them are there and all the fences look intact.

Check in on the elk.

Everybody looks good.

We'll check on them throughout the day to make sure nobody is limping.

We have several snakes at Salato.

We have venomous and non-venomous.

Our three main venomous snakes we have are the rattlesnake, the cottonmouth, and the copperhead.

Typically, about once a month, we try to weigh our venomous snakes.

Working with this rattlesnake, we have to be prepared.

We have to have the right equipment from our boots.

We have hooks to properly handle it.

There's a lot of training involved with handling and dealing with the animals that we work with here.

And they're wild animals.

So we have to take caution when we're here working.

What is our weight?

2022.

2022 I can remember that.

So I had to put it in a smaller container first, get a weight on the snake, and then we'll move it to the largest container so we have more room to clean.

We change the mulch.

Clean the glass.

Add fresh water, and then we return it back to its exhibit.

We prepare diet specific to our animals needs.

So carnivores get a carnivore diet.

And our herbivores and omnivores get either an herbivore diet or a mix.

Let's go wake up a bear.

One of the main attractions we have here is our black bear.

Everyone loves to see him.

We've had him about 22 years.

He weighs 670 pounds.

Good morning bear.

All of the behaviors we train for are for medical purposes, from body condition and health checks to more advanced procedures like vaccinations and blood draws.

All of the training is done voluntarily by our animals, so that we can keep track of their health without causing any unnecessary stress to them.

After we get him up and moving, we'll begin our training.

Training usually consist of having he put his paw in a paw shoot.

We warm up his paw with a heating pad.

When it's cold, the heat really helps swell up those veins so they're a little easier to find.

We also part is hair with warm water to make it easier to see.

While he is allowing us to take blood samples and work with his paw.

He gets special snacks that Brad will feed him through the fence, so he will get some of his favorite treats like lettuce and grapes.

And he'll get those only for blood draw trainings.

After blood draw, we go into other trainings.

Mouth.

We'll check his teeth.

Good.

Up.

Check out his paws and his paw pads.

Good boy, sit.

We do a variety of different trainings and it's all for health purposes.

Before we put our bear out, we always go in and clean up his enclosure.

Put out a little bit of food for him to find.

We'll use honey, berries, and other types of fruit.

We'll hide it around his enclosure so that it motivates him to forage and find that food on his own.

Get some moving around, get some exercise.

We've had our alligator snapping turtle now for a couple of years.

We feed him meat, sometimes chicken liver, sometimes fish, but most of the time he gets some sort of red meat.

So the meat here thawed out, and, it seems like it's ready for the turtle.

Sometimes he don't eat immediately, even though it's right on his head.

But give him an hour, an hour and a half, and then hopefully he'll be hungry and ready to eat.

He eats most of it.

The alligator gar.

They get some of it, too.

So what he don't get they do.

The gar usually eat fish, but sometimes they'll eat the meat that we give to our turtle.

They're opportunistic, and they'll take a meal when they can get it.

We do a back flush on the tanks weekly.

Out with the old water and put fresh water in.

It keeps the water fresh, clean, and it keeps our animals healthy.

So it looks like our turtles already ate.

There's only one piece left.

We have two bobcats here.

One is a male and one is a female.

Everybody loves the Bobcats.

Just like the bear they are probably the number one and number two animals that people come here to see.

They are totally opposite.

They have different personalities.

One of them is very playful and is not very food motivated for training.

And the other one is a little bit more standoffish.

Likes to do his own thing.

But he is very eager to train every day.

Good morning.

This is our female bobcat.

She's about 6 or 7 years old.

She is being playful this morning.

She's ready to get to work.

And this is our male bobcat.

He's about nine years old.

He's getting ready to get to work too.

Scale.

We are getting a weight on our female bobcat here.

They're trained to get up on the scale.

We weigh them twice a month to keep up with their health.

They're both full grown now, so we like them to maintain their current weight.

Tail.

So we put tail on cue because it helps us keep track of, you know, if they have any intestinal parasites, any redness or swelling.

Very good.

They are trained to sit so that they can stay still on a scale or inside of a crate.

The Bobcats are trained to stand up and put their paws on the chain link, so that we're able to look at their paw pad conditions and look at their stomachs.

All of this training really helps us be on top of their health without any stress to them.

They love training.

They get lots of reinforcement for doing things.

I ask them to do.

Enrichments are activities that keeps them mentally and physically stimulated.

Sometimes it may be music, sometimes it could be bubbles.

A bubble machine.

So today she's getting a box with a plain sheet inside.

She seems to really be enjoying it.

So what I'll do is just leave the exhibit door open.

So she wants to head out there while we're finishing up his training outside.

She can do that.

Mouth.

Good boy.

All done.

So the Living Stream is an outdoor aquarium that holds multiple variety of fish.

You can go in and see it as if you were looking underwater at the fish themselves, and see their environment.

It█s like an exhibit version of Elkhorn Creek or Guist Creek.

It has native fish you'll find in those creeks.

We've got crappie, bluegill, largemouth bass, red ear, catfish, long nose short nose and spotted gar, drums.

We just have a wide variety of fish species that you'll find in Kentucky.

What we're going to do now is feed the fish in the living stream.

We usually start by taking a dip net and getting about four bucket full of minnows.

We've got them all over here now.

Hopefully they're hungry.

Generally, when we take our minnows to the Living Stream, they eat like piranhas.

But today they're not as active and are not eating with water temperatures as cold as they are.

They're going to eat slowly.

Doesn't look like too many of them are hungry right now, but they got plenty to eat.

What is not ate will survive and they'll have them a few days from now.

Our bald eagle is another animal people love to see.

People ask us often why he can't be released.

He was injured from a power line.

He's non releasable because he cannot fly.

We're going to try to weigh the eagle today.

We typically weigh the animals twice a month just to keep a good look on their weight.

When we weigh our eagle he knows exactly what we want because he's done it so much.

We generally just point and it goes and gets on the scale.

4285g.

Good bird.

There's always a lot of things going on around here.

Sometimes it's a big job.

Sometimes it's a little job.

But we always stay busy.

I really enjoy working here, working with the animals, and it's something that I know that I'm going to enjoy even when I come back to work tomorrow.

We have a really good work dynamic here.

It's nice to have a team of people that you can count on.

We never know what we're going to show up to from a day to day basis.

The animals behave differently through the seasons, but I love working here and it's nice to know at the end of the day, when we leave here, we know that we've provided the best care possible for these animals.

Now let's check in and see who else has been out having fun in this week's ones that didn't get away.

Lori Vernon took her best buck to date in Hardin County.

Congratulations.

Check out this beautiful rainbow trout that was taken from the Cumberland River by Ryan Rothrock.

Nice fish.

March is the time of year that the water starts to heat up and so does the fishing.

Consider going to a small pond and take your chance at catching a big fish.

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