Changing Animal Population
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Chuck Denney
Fear the scaly one. An armadillo scoots along – not in the Texas desert or a Florida swamp, but in a row crop field in Fayette County, Tennessee. Like it or not, these animals have migrated to the Volunteer State.
Dr. Rick Carlisle
“They’ve been around here for about ten-twelve years now. We are seeing more and more and more. They’ll absolutely root in a yard. They’ll root in a flower bed. It looks like a bunch of hogs have been turned loose in that flower bed.”
Chuck Denney
Dr. Rick Carlisle took this video at Ames Plantation - which also operates as one of UT’s Agricultural Research and Education centers. Here experts note changes in our wildlife population. No one knows why certain animals like Armadillos are now here. It could be the mild winters of recent times. But something is going on. Fire ants, for instance, are now in at least two-thirds of Tennessee’s counties
Dr. Rick Carlisle
“You know we were told 20 years ago that fire ants would never be in this area - but they’re almost to Kentucky now.”
Chuck Denney
Remember when it was a big deal to see a deer? Now they’re pretty much everywhere.
The surge in the deer population was largely man-made, as the TWRA boosted their numbers.But we’ve also seen natural increases in animals such as coyotes, wild turkeys and hawks. While we’ve seen brand new animals come to Tennessee, and increases in population for other species – there’s nature’s flip side to this. Other animals once common to our area, are all but gone. Researchers at Ames want to bring quail back in big numbers to Tennessee. They’re raising and releasing 14-thousand birds a year from these pens, and working to restore quail habitat.
Dr. Allan Houston
“Now what we’ve got is a soft edge, room for the birds to nest, room for them to hide, room for them to feed. And there’s a little bit of feed left here.”
Chuck Denney
Dr. Allan Houston believes it was a blend of predatory animals, agriculture and urbanization – and the result – Tennessee has lost 80% of its quail population the past 40 years.
Dr. Allan Houston
“Now I’m going to write a plan to get rid of them. Let’s introduce fescue. That’s kind of like green concrete. They can’t nest in it. They can’t penetrate it for seeds. Let’s capture a lot of the ground now, encroached to hardwoods and pine. Then let’s farm big. Let’s make our farm fields bigger, bigger, bigger.”
Chuck Denney
When a species goes away for good, nature’s balance is tipped and may never recover. Life’s one certainty -that change is the only constant – remains true in wildlife. Work will go on to save certain beautiful animals, while others appear to have found a new home.
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NOTE: UT wildlife experts say some species of hawks in Tennessee have increased in population by nearly one thousand percent in recent times.
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