Kentucky’s State Wildlife Action Plan (SWAP) summarizes the status of the state’s vulnerable wildlife species and the condition of their habitat.
“Our first (plan) was in 2013, with a revision in 2023,” said Laura Burford, nongame Program coordinator for the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources (KDFWR).
SWAP is a blueprint to drive conservation priorities and decision-making, developed by partners, with the approval of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The plans are adaptive, regularly reviewed and updated to keep current with emerging wildlife issues.
The goal in Kentucky is to maintain the health and diversity of native wildlife resources. Species specialists, their teams and wildlife managers prioritize projects and direct limited financial resources where they will be most effective.
The strategy includes the management of currently rare/endangered species, those that are in decline, and many species that have received less attention in the past. Because recovery is more costly and difficult to achieve once a species is imperiled, the idea is to intervene before that happens.
Kentucky’s 2023 SWAP revision identified 527 species of greatest conservation need, including freshwater mussels, fishes, crayfish, songbirds, reptiles, turtles, amphibians, mammals, insects, and plants, outlining potential and existing threats, and made recommendations of specific conservation efforts necessary for the recovery of these species and their associated habitats.
Here’s some information on four species of greatest conservation need with interesting past histories in Kentucky:
• Surveys suggest that populations of the Alligator Gar (Atractosteus spathula) have been far below historic levels in the past century, and there’s been an almost complete absence of the fish is recent decades.
In Fishes of Kentucky, published in 1975, author William M. Clay wrote that the Alligator Gar is “rare, but evidently still present in the Ohio River and some of its tributaries.” He cited personal communication with fishery biologists and historical records of naturalists, noting confirmed sightings in the Ohio River basin in Kentucky as far upstream as Bracken County.
But indiscriminate harvest, persecution with firearms and nets, and a loss of wetland habitat brought this native species to the brink of extirpation in Kentucky. KDFWR reported on their website that sightings were sporadic between 1925 and 1977.
The range of the Alligator Gar once spread across the Florida panhandle west into the Gulf Coastal Plain to Veracruz, Mexico and throughout the Mississippi River basin, as far north as the lower Ohio, Cumberland and Tennessee Rivers in Kentucky. The fish’s preferred habitat includes large, slow moving rivers, reservoirs, oxbow lakes, and wetlands.
In 2009 a long-term restoration program was started in Kentucky in partnership with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS).
Adult fish captured in the wild from populations in southern waters were spawned off at the Private John Allen National Fish Hatchery in Tupelo, Mississippi. Then their fry were shipped to the Pfeiffer Fish Hatchery and Minor Clark Fish Hatchery in Kentucky, where they were reared up to stocking size, before being released into waters in western Kentucky where suitable habitat remains.
In recent years Alligator Gar have been stocked in McCracken, Ballard, Livingston, Crittenden, Union, Carlisle, Fulton and Hickman counties.
The Alligator Gar stocked in Kentucky were tagged so it can be determined if captured fish were stocked or were the result of natural reproduction.
Since Alligator Gar are a long-lived and slow to mature species, restoration and research is likely to continue for decades. It takes a female Alligator Gar 11 years to reach sexual maturity, six years for a male.
Alligator Gar may not be harvested by any means, either by bow fishermen, or by hook and line. If caught on hook and line, they must be be released immediately.
The gar family, Lepisostidae, dates back to the Cretaceous geologic period, which began about 145 million years ago.
• The breeding and abundance of the Osprey (Pandion haliaetus) in Kentucky has been poorly documented.
In the Kentucky Breeding Bird Atlas, it was stated that John James Audubon observed “several pairs were nesting in the vicinity of the Falls of the Ohio in the early 1800s.”
In June, 1949, a nest was observed in the Blood River embayment of Kentucky Lake.
The fish hawk was severely impacted by the presence of DDT in the environment and food chain during the 1960s.
In the early 1980s reintroduction programs were initiated in Kentucky, and other states in the region
Today, the species is still uncommon, and breeds in the Jackson Purchase Region, most often in and around Lake Barkley, and in wetlands along the Mississippi River, according to the National Audubon Society.
Breeding birds winter in the Gulf Coast and return to Kentucky in April.
Their large nests, constructed of sticks, are constructed in trees and on utility poles. They nest readily on platform structures specifically constructed for their use. Nests are typically more than 20 feet off the water or ground. The young fledge by July.
• The Appalachian Cottontail, Sylvilagus obscurus, lives in the same habitat as the Ruffed Grouse.
It is strictly a woodland species, most often found around abandoned hill farms, or strip mines.
Like the Ruffed Grouse, numbers of Appalachian Cottontail rabbits have declined because forests in eastern Kentucky’s mountain counties are growing into maturity, with less open land in shrubs, undergrowth, and saplings.
The species is very similar in coloration to the Eastern Cottontail, and is the smallest of the three species of rabbits present in Kentucky.
It can only be differentiated from the Eastern Cottontail by details of their skulls. The species was not described in the scientific literature as a separate species until 1992.
This rabbit has been found in some counties of the Cumberland Plateau, as far west as Lincoln and Boyle counties. Not much is known about its distribution in mountainous eastern Kentucky.
The Appalachian Cottontail is found at high elevations from Pennsylvania to South Carolina, and is closely related to the New England Cottontail, Sylvilagus transitionalis.
• Loss of habitat in wintering and summer breeding grounds are linked to the decline of the Monarch Butterfly (Danaus plexippus).
Their beauty and agility in flight thrills nature lovers and gardeners alike.
But this seemingly fragile insect, with its beautiful coloration and fluttering flight, is hardly a home body. The Monarch Butterfly travels long distances to complete its life cycle. They leave Kentucky and other states in the region in the fall, and head south to wintering grounds across the Gulf of America.
Huge colonies use air currents to travel as far as 115 miles a day to the Sierra Madre Mountains west of Mexico City where they spend the winter in cool and wet oyamel fir forests, an endangered forest-type, on mountain tops at elevations up to 10,000 feet.
Some butterflies in the eastern population join the south Florida non-migratory population. Others remain in the southern U.S. during the winter months.
While in their wintering grounds the Monarch Butterfly feeds on and reproduces on milkweed plants.
Once the winter breeding season is over in March, the newly-hatched butterflies start the annual migration cycle over again, taking to the air for the long trek back north.
Biologists and citizen scientist volunteers capture and tag the Monarch Butterfly throughout its range. Each tag consists of a small sticker displaying a unique code, which identifies the tagged butterfly and where it originated.
The length of Monarch Butterfly migrations is astounding. KDFWR reported that a female Monarch Butterfly tagged at Perryville Battlefield State Historic Site, in western Boyle County, was found months later, 1,600 miles to the south, at the El Rosario Butterfly Preserve. The Perryville Battlefield State Historic Site is one of several areas in Kentucky where pollinator-friendly habitat restoration programs are underway.
The El Rosario Butterfly Preserve is the largest and most visited sanctuary within the 217-square mile Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve. Millions of monarch butterflies from eastern North America overwinter there, clustered together in the high-elevation forests.
The Monarch Butterfly must have access milkweed plants to complete their life cycle. Without them they can’t survive.
So a habitat restoration program must include establishing and encouraging several species of milkweed plants, genus Asclepias.
There are nine species of milkweed plants native to Kentucky, with the most widely distributed and arguably most important, being the Common Milkweed (Asclepias syriaca) and the Butterfly Weed (Asclepias tuberosa).
Females lay eggs on milkweed plants, which are the food source for the caterpillars that emerge from the eggs. Then the caterpillars form a chrysalis where the pupa undergoes its transformation into an adult.
Upon emergence, the adults consume nectar for fuel and begin the life cycle all over again.
Establishing and encouraging native perennial milkweed plants on your property is a good way to benefit the Monarch Butterfly, and help restore populations of this iconic pollinator.
For complete details of Kentucky’s State Wildlife Action Plan, visit app.fw.ky.gov
I was kind of disappointed to see the Gulf of Mexico mentioned as the Gulf of America.