nature

“I grew up in Cincinnati, where my father owned a pet store and delivered supplies to other pet stores,” Lipps says. “I rode along with him whenever I could and was always fascinated by the animals in the various shops we visited — particularly the reptiles and amphibians.”

22 million carp?!?

For example, the following item appeared nearly a century ago, in the March 1923 issue of the Fisheries Service Bulletin, published monthly by the Federal Bureau of Fisheries, under the heading “Hatching Carp in Lake Erie”: 

“More than 1,600 owl sightings were reported to the project,” says Mathys. “Of those submitted, about half were able to be assigned to species with some certainty, based on a submitted photo, recording, or description.”

He says he received reports from 87 of Ohio’s 88 counties, with only Jefferson County in eastern Ohio lacking. The top five counties for reported submissions were Hamilton (19.4%), Franklin (7.6%), Butler (6.1%), Warren (5.4%), and Clermont (4.8%). 

Clint Walker, a member of Consolidated Cooperative, discovered just such a pair of dead bucks on his farm in Morrow County in north-central Ohio during the autumn of 2017. Interestingly, this is not the first unusual find on the Walker farm. In 2013, a mastodon skeleton was discovered and subsequently excavated by biology professors and students from Ashland University. According to carbon-14 dating techniques, the giant bones were estimated at 13,000 years old.  

Several species of widow spiders exist in North America, and Ohio has two of them: the Northern Black Widow and the Southern Black Widow — and the fear that we hold in our hearts for both of them is rational and deserved.

Ruffed grouse were plentiful in Ohio during the second half of the 20th century, but no more. Human hunters are not to blame, as their seasonal take of the birds has always been negligible. Rather, it is the bird’s own habitat that is gradually turning against it, and according to the national Ruffed Grouse Society, that change is taking place across much of the ruffed grouse range — some 18 states — from the upper Midwest to New England, the Mid-Atlantic region, and Appalachia.    

Situated along a rural road about 30 miles north of Columbus, Groovy Plants Ranch is a 5-acre complex where Jared and his wife, Liz, grow and sell plants that they ship to customers around the world. It opened in 2016, but Jared began cultivating the business in his late teens while studying landscape design at Columbus State Community College and working at a Delaware County greenhouse. “I started growing succulents in my room because they’re easy to care for and propagate,” Jared says. “It was a side hustle to earn extra Smoney.”

Away from the hubbub, but not too far away

The area has a rich agricultural history and enjoys a rural setting while benefiting from close proximity to Toledo and to Lake Erie, making for easy day trips. The Toledo Zoo, the Toledo Museum of Art, and the National Museum of the Great Lakes are popular destinations in this area of the state.

Some gray treefrogs also call outside of the breeding season — generally April through June in Ohio — but why they do so is a mystery. “It isn’t uncommon to hear a male calling from high in the trees in late summer or early fall,” Lipps says.

Measuring no more than 2 inches long, the gray treefrog is the largest treefrog in the northern United States; it’s found throughout Ohio. Mainly arboreal, the frogs come down out of the trees during breeding season, congregating in vernal pools.