During 2024 there were several developing news stories related to fish and wildlife in Kentucky. Here are three of the most important and impactful:
• Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) was found in early October on a deer farm in Breckinridge County. As a result a three-county surveillance zone was established in Meade, Breckinridge and Hardin Counties.
CWD is a fatal neurologic disease that affects deer, elk and other cervids (members of the deer family). It is caused by a prion, a type of protein that attacks the brain and nervous system. Deer infected with CWD are emaciated and often display an enlarged tongue. They have little fear of humans, often stumble, and drool.
There is currently no known cure for CWD. Highly contagious, the disease has spread extensively among deer and elk populations across North America over the past two decades. CWD has been found in 34 states in the U.S., including all of Kentucky’s seven border states, and five Canadian provinces.
In surveillance zones baiting and feeding deer is banned to prevent the animals from congregating and potentially spreading CWD. Also, it is illegal take deer carcasses and high-risk parts such as heads out of surveillance zones.
For the 2023 deer season a CWD surveillance zone was established in the eight counties of the Jackson Purchase Region in West Kentucky after a 2 1/2 year-old male wild deer harvested by a hunter in Ballard County tested positive. Two independent types of tests were performed on tissue collected from the deer both yielded the same result — the deer was infected with the abnormal proteins that cause CWD.
It was Kentucky’s first documented case of the disease.
For more details, read KDFWR’s CWD and hunter regulations in the two zones.
• Kentucky’s Black Bear population is growing and expanding its range.
It is now estimated that the state’s black bear population has grown to about 1,500 animals in 39 counties in eastern Kentucky.
Research biologists with the KDFWR have found that resident female bears are wandering farther from their home territories than usual to start their families, according to an article in the summer edition of Kentucky Afield magazine.
KDFWR monitors bear range expansion through yearly den surveys, DNA sample collection, and collaring animals with GPS-enabled transmitters to track them.
The state’s population was accomplished organically through the recolonization of bears into Kentucky from states bordering Kentucky’s southeastern counties.
The core range of black bears includes parts of McCreary, Whitley, Bell, Harlan, Letcher, Perry and Pike counties, with a more recent expansion westward into Wayne County. Bears have their highest concentrations along the forested ridges of Pine, Cumberland and Black mountains.
There have been isolated sightings of bears as far west as Daviess County, but biologists say these sightings are likely male bears, that tend to roam long distances in the spring.
For information visit the KDFWR Kentucky black bear hunting page.
• There has been a substantial expansion of the fish habitat program in Kentucky’s lakes due to efforts by KDFWR employees, their partner agencies, and numerous volunteer groups.
KDFWR wrote on their website that “most of the lakes in Kentucky were created more than 50 years ago and are starting to show their age. Natural processes like sedimentation and decay of woody structure can reduce the number of places that fish have for spawning and nursery habitat.”
There are active projects, in every fishery district across the state designed to improve, enhance and replace this habitat that has been lost due to time. By building habitat structures in frequently fished areas, fish will be drawn from areas with poor habitat and make fishing a little less of a hit and miss proposition for anglers.
The fish habitat/attractors are made in a variety of shapes and sizes and include material from trees, rocks, logs, wooden pallets, and even commercially made plastic pipe structures.
Fish habitat structures are typically dense in nature with tree limbs and shade producing cover. Rock piles and gravel beds create spawning grounds for many species and brush piles provide much needed shelter for young fishes. All of these structures also provide stable substrates for the attachment of aquatic plants that provide the basis of the food chain in lakes. In general, more habitat just means more fish.
KDFWR also collects Christmas trees for habitat. Every year after the holiday season, thousands of discarded natural trees are collected and recycled into brush piles for habitat. Typically, the recycled Christmas trees and smaller tree limbs are weighted down with concrete blocks.
Here’s some examples of habitat projects in central and eastern Kentucky:
On Taylorsville Lake in Little Beech Creek over 100 large cedars were used to refurbish two brush piles, build one new brush pile and create nearly two miles of shoreline habitat.
Partners and volunteer groups on this project included the Derby City Fly Fishers, the Kentucky Backcounty Hunters and Anglers, the Taylorsville Lake Army Corps of Engineers and Taylorsville Lake State Park.
At Cedar Creek Lake fish attractors made from recycled Christmas trees were placed in the lake, and at Dewey Lake fish habitat structures made from plastic pipe were placed at several locations in the lower lake.
See KDWR’s full list of lakes with fish attractors and their locations at fw.ky.gov/fish_attractor_lakes.
