Woods, Waters & Wildlife

Ohio, the Buckeye State, was admitted to the Union in 1803, but even 15 years later it remained a very wild place — too wild, in the opinions of some settlers, and they determined to do something about it, frontier style.

By far, the question Kevin and Debbie Kleer hear most this time of year is, “Can reindeer really fly?”

The Kleers run Kleerview Farm near Bellville, Ohio, in southern Richland County, and kids are there with their parents mostly to pick out a Christmas tree and see Santa. The real attraction, however, is the Kleers’ small herd of nine live reindeer — Blitzen, Noel, Belle, Nicholas, Crystal, Jingles, Clarice, Felice, and Cherry — which obviously prompts lots of questions, from both kids and adults.

For some 25 years, I raised beagles for hunting cottontail rabbits. Reluctantly, I gave it up about a decade ago when my oldest dog died. What I miss most about the sport is the sound of the chase.

Hunters call it hound music.

My longtime friend and fellow outdoors writer Mike Tontimonia is another who knows the sound well. A member of Carroll Electric Cooperative in eastern Ohio, Tontimonia estimates he’s owned 150 beagles during his lifetime — both hunters and field-trialers — with as many as 20 dogs in his kennel at any one time.

Twenty years ago this fall, Rick Wilson was driving along a Virginia highway when he spotted a woman standing beside a car with the trunk open. “From the way she was dressed and by the appearance of the car, it looked like she was not doing too well financially,” Wilson says. “When I stopped and asked if her car was broken down, she said, ‘No, but could you please help me load a deer into the trunk?’”

As Ohio Cooperative Living’s outdoors editor, I hear some pretty humorous tales about wildlife in the Buckeye State. For instance, take a look at the photo above. At first glance it looks like a typical possum-at-the-birdfeeder shot. But Steve Seitz assures me there’s more to the story.

According to an old Pima Indian legend, a flock of very ordinary gray birds became concerned about how unattractive they looked. They began bathing in a sparkling blue mountain lake every morning hoping to make themselves more beautiful. After bathing in the lake for four days, their feathers fell off, and all that remained was gray skin that was even uglier than their plain-looking gray feathers. On the fifth day the feathers grew back in, but this time they were the brilliant blue color of the mountain lake.

The invaders arrived deliberately or inadvertently. Either way, invasive plant species have wreaked havoc on our ecosystem. Just what is an invasive species? Essentially, an invasive species is one that is not native and whose introduction causes or is likely to cause economic, environmental, or physical harm to an ecosystem.