Bull's coverage and jumping right to it, which you know, when you've got twenty minutes of time on Saturday morning between five and five thirty, you can't screw around.
Okay.
Otherwise, Gary Jeff, the news team will open fire if and when they're paying attention.
Am I correct?
Any?
Yes, you are correct? Okay, good, we got that straight. Gary Jeff will get very angry at me and start cursing and using things I can't sail on the air.
That's right, even though under our brock. Okay, yeah, absolutely. John Navarro joins me. He is a biologist with the Ohio Divisional Wildlife under ODNR and has an area of expertise which is aquatic diverse diversity conservation management.
And that's a lot for five am in the morning, John, I gotta tell you, yeah.
It is. So.
The article came out two weeks back about the aquatic habitat biologist and being taxed with new missions.
Uh, they are under your purview.
So give us an idea what this means, because you know, God does I do know quite a few young men and women that we are interested in this area of study, and so you know, I want to get them a little born to work with here since things are changing out there pretty quickly.
Sure.
So yeah, So we have a new position. It's called Aquatic Habitat Biologists, and the idea of it is the divisional Wildlife manages all species, not just what we pursue with hook and bullet, so which is still our core core audience, our core constituency, but we also manage critters that people don't pursue, and some of them are are very rare and cool. So we thought, with the interest in aquatic diversity trustrialsity, that maybe we should have this
expertise in house. So our staff are all versed in sport fish, but we really were lacking the expertise in the other critters. So that's what this position is. It's going to work with the non game uh species, you know, fish, muscles, that kind of thing, and they're going to become our in house experts. So we have three of them right now, one in south west Ohio, one in Central Ohio, and
one in Northeast Ohio. And we're looking to hire two more, one in northwest Ohio and one in Southeast Ohio, so eventually we'll have one in each district that will provide expertise in aquatic diversity.
So do they report to the district office or do they report to Columbus specifically?
Yeah, that's interesting. So our district operations are not managed by me, so they do report to the district manager, but I provide programmatic direction.
Okay, fantastic.
So where did you get the biological information in the past? Uh? Even though I know that you know staff wise, you know, every all of your all of your people know a lot about a lot when it comes down to it, you know, So where did that come from?
Initially? So the idea that I know, I mean the you know this.
If this type of biologist was on staff, where was that information coming from?
Biological?
So right, So we have a really good relationship with with species experts out there. So like if there was a muscle question, I would go to the folks at os U, yeah, or hellbenders. We have someone that we pay through OSU to do our hellbender research and all the other amphibians and reptiles. So basically, if there was a question I couldn't answer, I would go to our partners.
Outside, which is fine, but I really, I really thought, and Chief Wecker thought, and Todd Haynes, our assistant chief, thought it would be really good to have that.
Expertise in house. So so that's where the direction we went. And so these people will be well versed on everything diversity.
Okay, great, well, and of course your universities are spitting out the people that would be uh. I guess you know, qualified through education for positions like this.
So I it makes more sense.
Than a lot of things I've heard out there. So John Navarro, you sit tight. We got to hit a short break, Chip Hart, I guess John Navarro with Ohio Divisional Wildlife, Big Outdoors News Radio seven hundred WLW Cincinnati, LW Cincinnati, Chip Hart, and my guest is John Navarro.
And if you hang around long enough.
Gary Jeff Walker and his cast of characters will be up at the afternoon news who Who on the at the bottom of the hour after the bottom and taking
you at nine am. And Michael k Allen likely with his rants and raves across the world, his worldview of things, which is it's quite fractured anyway, but no, he's you know, you're talking about the best radio on Saturday in Cincinnati between five am and noon for crying out loud, So anyway, John Navarro, Divisional Wildlife moving to the sturgeon stocking program, which I I think is very cool. I've you know,
never had the opportunity to like outlast. It's a big deal to fish for Okay, I guess what the Columbia River and some other places like that, and it was native originally to to I guess Lake Erie. And so tell me where we're at at this point in time. And is that a different I guess a different species of sturgeon.
No, So the species we're talking about are lake sturgeon, which are native to the Great Lakes. But because of the building of dams, water quality issues, and persecution. To be honest with you, they weren't very well loved back in the eighteen hundreds that they basically pretty much disappeared from Lake Erie. So water quality improvements through the Clean Water Act, which is fifty years old, right, a great piece of legislation. It's a amazing how the water quality
in Ohio and around the country has improved. So we're at a point where we felt that we could reintroduce lake sturgeons. So we started on the Mammie River in twenty eighteen with a partnership with the Toledo Zoo. So Toledo Zoo is raising half the fish, and half of them come from Genoa Fish Hatchery in Wisconsin. And the idea is we wanted to look if it's important for these fish to imprint with the local water so they
know how to come back to their natal water body. So, okay, half of them are raised on Mommy water and half of them are raised on Wisconsin water. They all get released at the same time, and it'll take a while because they are long lived. You know, they'll live to be one hundred years old. They'll get six feet long, two hundred pounds, so they're slow to mature. It'll be a while before we see the results of that study.
All the fish have a pit tag in them, which is a little transmitter the size of a grain of rice, and you can detect it with a wand And so we're going to be releasing those for the next twenty plus years, trying to establish a population in the Maumee River. What's really exciting is this year we added the Sandusky River, and most exciting was the Cuyahoga River. We released Lake sturgeon this year and so at that release thank you
Cleveland Metro Parks for hosting the event. Sure the backdrop was the Cleveland or was the Cuyahoga River, which fifty years ago was on fire.
Now we all know that.
Yeah, yeah, and was the catalyst for the Clean Water Act. So past forward fifty years to this year, we're releasing an endangered fish into the Cuyahoga River in downtown Cleveland. So it's just amazing.
It is amazing. So what do they what's it? What do they primarily feed on?
So they're a bottom feeder, so I think they're so cool. They're prehistoric. They're around when the dinosaurs are around, and they look like a shark, so they kind of look intimidating when they're six feet long, but they don't worry. They're not going to eat you. They eat stuff off the bottom, so aquatic insects, you know, small muscles, maybe fish every once in a while. So they're a bottom feeder so that's mainly what they eat.
So will they eat the zebra muscle?
I'm sure if they come across it, they'll.
They'll eat it.
Okay, Yeah, hell, were there any pre existing like a blake sturgeon?
There is relic populations in Lake Erie. Yeah, there is still a population in Wisconsin, and the Detroit River actually has them to So that's where we got our eggs for the production.
Well, I got it.
I got to believe that you know, through the H two Ohio and the removal of you know, certain dams on certain rivers that maybe you know, we're in that Lake Erie watershed, that that that's a big positive too for their I guess migratory ability to.
To uh you know, to to to breed and so on and so forth. So John sid tight, we got to hit a break.
Come back, we'll talk more about uh, well, we're going to talk about the invasive carp Lake Erie tributaries. Chip Hart, John Navarro, Ohio Divisional Wildlife, The Big Outdoors News Radio, seven hundred w l W, Cincinnati.
Back in the moment, go seven hundred w l W, The.
Big Outdoors News Radio, seven hundred w l W, Cincinnati. I am excited about this subject matter, Danny, Okay.
Yes, And and because you.
Know, not only our sport fish cool well, we love to catch them, but also you know the other native fish and critters that make up this whole ecosystem, and Ohio's it, you know, we're in pretty good shape. Okay, nothing against our neighbors, because you're all listening to me too.
You guys got cool stuff too.
We'll get to it if I get somebody on the phone from your Department and Natural Resources, which is helpful. So John Navarro, Divisional Wildlife. Uh, let's let's kind of get on get on to These are subjects that I've been wanting to talk to somebody about for quite some time. So you've kind of fulfilled the whole need here the invasive carp and in terms of the Lake Erie watershed. So where do we stand right now? We've heard about,
you know, the Chicago River and all that. Of course, the Mommy River goes over in Indiana, starts in Indiana, right yeah, so.
Yeah, So invasive carp mainly, the ones we're really worried about are the big head and silver carp. They're filter feeders and they can out compete our young native fish and they've shown to be pretty impactful where they get a high population. Fortunately, in Ohio they have not gotten to a population size yet that we think is going to impact natives. But I think it's only a matter of time, and once you have an invasive species get established,
it's extremely hard to eradicate them. So the o High River Watershed we're trying our best to keep the population down, but we're really worried about the Great Lakes and for Ohio Lake Erie, so we're doing a lot of work to keep them from going from the Ohigh River Watershed
to the Lake Erie Watershed. One of the main things is there's two hydraulic connection points where they could cross over one an acrony in one south of Lode Io High and we've already closed the one on the High Ohio Erie Canal and akron through raising the elevation between the two watersheds. Okay, when it flood. When it floods,
they can't go back and forth. And we're working south of Lodi for the Little Killbuck Creek project to construct a burm, which we completed this year for phase one, But the idea is to separate that watershed so they can't get into Lake Erie.
Well, that's a monumental tay ask before we go on. I know you mentioned well, let's just circle back to the to the sturgeon stocking. You mentioned that we have another location in fact that impacts the Ohio River Valley.
Oh yeah.
What's really exciting is this year, in partnership with h Ohio Rivers Program and OSU, we released thirty lake sturgeon in Circleville at our Richard's Boat Ramp and so late you think a lake sturgeon, you think Lake Erie, but they were. They are native to the Ohio River Watershed and the Mississippi River watershed. So we're working to establish a population in the Sciota River. And this year we
release thirty radio tagged fish. So these fish have an actual tag in it that releases a signal that can get picked up on receivers that we have laid out from Columbus down to the Ohio River.
The mouth got you, I would imagine if an angler caught a sturgeon, regardless if it's tagg or not, that they need to report.
It, report it and release it. Please.
Yes.
Yes.
And we do have some shovel nose sturgeon which is a close relative, and we get reports of fishermen catching those and they're very good about taking a picture and releasing it, so they're doing the right thing.
Good.
Now back to the to the big head, the silver carp In terms of Lake Erie, have they actually gotten in the lake.
So when you say invasive carp, if there's four speces to talking about the big head silver black carp, which haven't made it up the Mississippi River to us yet, and then the grass cart and the grass carp does have a reproducing population in the Sandusky and Maumee River and we're working very hard to eradicate that population in partnership with the University of Toledo that team up north
there DNR. I can't it's it's that week. I can't even mention their name, Okay, but we do partner with them closely on trying to eradicate this population in the western basin of the lake here.
Well, John, how can people find out more of the about the invasive carp in terms of like just go to do a search on wild Ohio dot gov.
But be sure yep, yep, yep, and they can find all kinds of information.
All right, great, Well, let's and I appreciate your time this morning. All good stuff, and see I keep up on.
Things with you.
Okay, you did you know as far as what's happening out there, So that's fantastic. Well, listen, have a great holiday season and catch up with you like fish Ohio.
Okay, I appreciate it.
Thanks John with that, we got to hit a break Chip Hart the Big Outdoors News Radio seven hundred WLW, Cincinnati.
Back in the moment your tuned to news radio seven hundred w LW. We're back, Danny, Thank you.
I know, I got a couple of minutes and you know, Sir Gary Jeff's gonna blow the horn on me.
And that's it tough.
You know, oh if you have questions about anything that I've talked about, just called Gary Jeff.
Okay, He'll sold me out of my studio. I know, I know. So what do we have? What do we have?
There's a lot of people up in arms that come to Ohio to hunt as non residents, and you know, see it through social media, but you know, it's it's kind of a reciprocal thing. You know, if Indiana, Kentucky or West Virginia charges a certain amount to go deer hunt over there where, they've tried to bring Ohio commensurate with those neighboring states. So you know, the non resident either sex deer permit in Ohio cost you know, two
hundred and eighteen bucks and some change. And then your non resident hunting licenses is one hundred and eighty one dollars. So that's just what it is to hunt Ohio. If I go to Kentucky or Indiana, it's going to cost me the same thing.
So it was.
A prudent decision to be made. So you know, you can still come hunt here, and I can still go and hunt there. So that's just wherever we happen to stand and circling back. You know, we had that report that was reported that we had a grizzly bear that attacked a group of school children and teachers on a walking trail in British Columbia, Canada and eleven people injured. But so, uh, I don't know what's but that's the current news on that. And apparently there were multiple bears
in Ballved but I've had no update to date. And go look for a story about a bald eagle that dropped a cat through a driver's windshield in North Carolina, causing a car accident. So another fun story only in North Carolina, I guess. So you know, I guess they just watched it fall out of the sky, you know, better than fish.
Anyway, I'm out of here.
Gary Jeff is next to the Big Outdoors News Radio seven hundred WLW SIN standing be safe in the woods, safe on the water, and safe in that tree stand