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WILDLIFE ---
EVERCHANGING IN ARKANSAS
AND ARKANSAS' OZARKS

by B.W. Lusk

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Arkansas has wildlife varieties (animals, birds and fish) today that weren't around when the 20th Century opened. And, we are missing some species today that were here when 1900 dawned. But, Arkansas has an active program to protect the state's wildlife and several programs to restore species that have left the state.

Nature is full of changes and some of these new arrivals on the wildlife scene are natural occurrences. Others were a direct result of man's work and some indirect results of man's hand on the environment come into the mixture as well.

Some examples:
New with us since 1900: Coyotes, cattle egrets, roadrunners, striped bass, trout, armadillos, house finches, trumpeter swans, and scissors-tailed flycatchers. Gone, as in extinct, since 1900: Passenger pigeons, ivory-billed woodpeckers and Carolina parakeets.

Gone in 1900 but back with us today: Elk. Add bison, too, if you stretch our horizons to captivity. These are samplings. There are others, especially in the "gone" category - little-known creatures that have departed our scene. For accuracy's sake, the passenger pigeon and the Carolina parakeet may have been gone from Arkansas when 1900 arrived. Both were significant to the Arkansas wildlife in early times. Stories are handed down about flocks of passenger pigeons so thick they darkened the sky.

In the 1800s, they were easily available and sometimes hunted on roosts in trees with sticks rather than use valuable ammunition. But people of those days did not know when to stop. The passenger pigeons were killed out completely as World War I arrived.

Carolina parakeets were colorful residents of Arkansas' dense woodlands, and they disappeared with the clearing of the forests. Elk were wiped out well before 1900 by too much killing for food and by the changed land usage. Ditto for bison. Both have returned, the elk in the wild, in limited but growing numbers, and the bison as a semi-domesticated resident. More than one person has commented that bison aren't really tamed, just enclosed.

The elk in Arkansas today are along the Buffalo River's upper and middle stretches in north Arkansas. A limited effort at restoration earlier in the century failed, but a restocking that began in 1981 has succeeded to the point limited hunting is allowed. In Newton County, there is an annual elk festival. More on that later.

The immigrant that has made the largest impact on Arkansas's wildlife scene is the coyote. Coyotes came in from the west. Wily, tough and adaptable, they are now in all counties of the state.

Wolves, hated and feared, were on their way out in 1900 and haven't existed in Arkansas in the wild for many years, according to biologists. The name persists, though. "Wolf" today is often used to describe a coyote, a wild dog or a crossbreed of coyote and dog.

The scissors-tailed flycatcher is one of the area's more beautiful songbirds, and it has expanded into Arkansas from Oklahoma and the plains area. Its long twin tails and aerial courtship acrobatics make it a favorite for bird enthusiasts. Roadrunners moved into Arkansas about the time a certain cartoon series arrived, maybe a little before the fictionalized version.

Roadrunners are another immigrant from the west, from dry areas. Their numbers aren't large today, but they are in all areas of Arkansas and don't mind hanging out around houses. Though they don't "beep beep" like the cartoon favorite, they resemble it in appearance. And, they much prefer to run than fly.

House finches are one of our newer wildlife arrivals. They've been described as sparrows dipped in cranberry juice. From escapees in New Jersey and California, the birds have come to Arkansas' area in growing numbers in the last dozen or so years. They are plentiful around bird feeders in winter, far outnumbering the purple finches, which are similar in appearance.

That extremely large white bird you may spot on your winter wildlife rambles may be the Trumpeter Swan. Trumpeters are rare Arkansas visitors but may be increasing due to growing numbers in the upper Midwest. All are white birds when mature; juveniles have gray bodies. Trumpeter swans can't really be called new to Arkansas since so few are here in winter now.

On the water scene, man built dams with large lakes resulting, then man scrambled to find partial fixes to the changed environment for fish. The trout in four varieties and the striped bass were brought in.

Stripers came to Arkansas to fill a void, the large areas of deep water on new lakes where native fish wouldn't live. The ocean transplants feed almost entirely on shad, a prolific small fish that can easily overrun a lake in numbers. The stripers have also provided a new sport fishing impetus in Arkansas, and they are reproducing naturally in the Arkansas River system. In the lakes, they don't reproduce, however, and the program is on a put and take basis.

Trout were imported from the North and West to fill the fish gaps below dams that emitted cold water. Native bass, catfish, crappie and bream, disappeared from these areas nearly as soon as the dam gates were closed.

Rainbow trout were tried, and they did well, although they don't reproduce in Arkansas. Brown trout were another story. A few were imported, prospered then reproduced. Today, brown trout are reproducing in the wild on the White and Little Red rivers to the extent stockings aren't being made often. Arkansas has produced the last two world record brown trout.

And, there are the armadillos, more often seen dead along roads than alive in woods, pastures and yards. These came to Arkansas from the Southwest several decades back and have flourished to near- nuisance quantities.

Arkansas and Arkansas' Ozark Mountain Region offers a variety of wildlife and you'll often find a fun and exciting glimpse of that occassional White Trumpet Swan or The Elk strolling along the Buffalo River.

Some information in the article has been supplied from Arkansas Game & Fish Commission stories and are used with permission. All rights reserved. ©1999-2004 B.W. Lusk - May be used with written permission and reciprocal link to ShopTheOzarks.com. For more information, contact B.W. Lusk.