wildlife

A painting of Constantine Rafinesque-Schmaltz

Constantine Rafinesque-Schmaltz is the scientist you did not know that you knew. His walkabouts through Ohio impressed upon him a desire to discover more about plants and fishes and a prehistoric culture that predated him by millennia. 

The family moved to Italy to escape the terrors of the French Revolution. It was there that a self-educated Constantine came of age and took an ardent interest in natural history and languages, which would come to have its consequences in the names of organisms — through the eastern U.S., in Ohio, and even into the American Southwest. 

Hebron State Fish Hatchery sign

Do you like to fish? Me too. As a kid, one of my earliest memories was of sitting beside a pond fishing for bluegills with my father.

“The majority of Ohio’s fish populations are sustained through natural reproduction,” says Chris French, fish hatchery program administrator. “However, stocking expands and diversifies fishing opportunities in waters where existing habitats don’t support some fish populations. Stocking is only one of many fish management tools used by the Division of Wildlife to improve angling.”

Steve Graham, an Ohio farmer

It’s easy to tell you’re approaching the farm of Union Rural Electric Cooperative member Steve Graham.

The original farm contained a few small woodlots, which Graham kept. Also, because much of his ground is made up of water-loving hydric soil, he built a sizable pond and large wetland, paying for their construction through cost-sharing. The wildlife haven now attracts myriad songbirds, waterfowl, pollinators, white-tailed deer, and even a bald eagle or two.

A painting of Labrador ducks

Professional ornithologist Glen Chilton made quite the interesting offer in 2009: “I will pay a reward of $10,000 to the first person who can direct me to a genuine stuffed Labrador duck that I have not seen and described in my book, The Curse of the Labrador Duck.

Chilton made the offer because he had just completed a nearly 10-year study to personally examine all 55 known remaining taxidermic mounts and study skins of the bird, and he wanted to make sure he had located them all. 

His quixotic quest took him to museums throughout North America and Europe. He logged 72,018 miles on airplanes; 5,461 miles on trains; 3,408 miles in cars; 158 miles in taxis; 43 miles on ferries; and 1,169 miles on buses. That total of 82,257 miles is longer than three times around the earth at the equator! 

The fisher, also known as a fisher cat

A secretive, solitary hunter of the deep woods is attempting a comeback in the Buckeye State.

The fisher, a fur-bearing mammal found only in North America, is also known as black cat, black fox, or fisher cat because of its dark brown to nearly black coat. 

“Fishers [have been discovered] in archaeological sites in Ohio, and they were found in Ashtabula County as late as 1837,” says John Harder, associate professor emeritus in evolution, ecology, and organismal biology at Ohio State University. “However, unregulated trapping and habitat loss led to the extirpation of fishers from the state by 1850.”

Fishers are not small. Males can measure 4 feet in length from nose to tip of tail and weigh as much as 15 pounds. Females are half that size. 

Asian ring-necked pheasants are also known as “ditch parrots” because of their bright plumage as well as their tendency to lounge along roadsides.

I’m old enough to have witnessed the demise of much of the ring-necked pheasant population in Ohio firsthand. In the 1960s, I remember my father taking me on a pheasant hunt to private property in the northwest part of the state.

Ringneck numbers in Ohio peaked during the 1930s and ’40s, and have been on a steady downhill slide ever since. The reason for the decline is simple, as it is throughout the North American pheasant range: the disappearance of quality grassland habitat. 

As goes the habitat, so goes the population of birds.  

Monarch butterflies on a branch.

While beautiful orange-and-black monarch butterflies still flutter around area lawns and gardens between May and September each year, their numbers have declined over the years because of some combination of environmental conditions, herbicide and pesticide use, and loss of

“I remember seeing lots of butterflies in my younger days,” says 90-year-old Alvin Brown, a retired dairy farmer who resides near New Bremen. “There aren’t nearly so many nowadays, so we have to do what we can to help.”

Like Brown, Coldwater resident Norma “Skeet” Wolters became interested in helping the monarchs long before the Union for Conservation of Nature declared the species endangered in 2022. Having been involved in the Mercer County 4-H program for more than two decades, she often included butterflies in her nature presentations.

Daddy longlegs

The month of August is like an early Thursday morning of a given week: Just as Thursday means the week’s coming to a close, August marks the waning of summer.

That’s why they are also known as harvestmen — for their gregarious nature at harvest time. They live throughout Ohio, on the farm, in the forest, in the suburbs, in your gardens, and in every corner of every city. And they are good to have around.

Timber rattlesnake

I am not what anyone might call a “snake guy.” But the reptiles do hold a certain fascination for me, especially the three venomous species inhabiting the Buckeye State: timber rattlesnake, copperhead, and eastern massasauga.  

Another state (and federally) endangered species is the smallest of Ohio’s three venomous snakes, the eastern massasauga rattlesnake, a name derived from the Chippewa Indian language. It’s also known as the swamp rattler or black snapper — the latter moniker giving some idea of the snake’s dark coloration as well as its aggressive striking behavior upon becoming agitated. Massasaugas measure up to 30 inches in length.