Arkansas Wildlife

Arkansas Wildlife Podcast host Trey Reid talks with Arkansas Game and Fish Commission Wildlife Management Assistant Chief David Luker about Arkansas’s prolonged, extreme drought as hunting seasons approach. They note the period from November through March was the driest on record since 1895 and explain that being about 8.5 inches below normal for the year doesn’t reflect the larger multi-year deficit, requiring roughly 12–20 inches of rain to break the drought. They discuss how scarce water a...

Host Trey Reid talks with Arkansas Game and Fish Commission fish ecologist Chance Garrett about his statewide work on species of greatest conservation need, threatened and endangered fish monitoring, and why non-game species matter to food webs and conservation. Garrett highlights Arkansas endemics like the strawberry darter and Ouachita and Caddo madtoms, then focuses on the leopard darter, endemic to the Little River system. He explains how reservoir construction in the 1960s–70s fragmented...

Host Trey Reid welcomes Dr. Craig Harper (University of Tennessee), Ronnie Ritter (Arkansas Hunters Feeding the Hungry), and Arkansas Game and Fish Commissions Deer Management Assistance Program (DMAP) coordinator Jeremy Brown, to discuss deer management. Brown explains DMAP’s free, site-specific data, habitat guidance, and herd-balancing recommendations for large private lands, noting the program’s 25-year Arkansas milestone and the need to reduce deer densities in some areas. Dr. Harper out...

Host Trey Reid welcomes Dr. Craig Harper (University of Tennessee), Ronnie Ritter (Arkansas Hunters Feeding the Hungry), and Arkansas Game and Fish Commissions Deer Management Assistance Program (DMAP) coordinator Jeremy Brown, to discuss deer management. Brown explains DMAP’s free, site-specific data, habitat guidance, and herd-balancing recommendations for large private lands, noting the program’s 25-year Arkansas milestone and the need to reduce deer densities in some areas. Dr. Harper out...

Host Trey Reid talks with AGFC Conservation Support Division Chief Cory Gray and Wildlife Health Biologist A.J. Riggs about chronic wasting disease (CWD) in Arkansas. They discuss the two new counties for the 2026-2027 season (Grant and Sevier) and how the detections will effects hunters this season. They summarize a five-year research project (2020–2025) in Newton county with the University of Georgia, SCWDS, and Colorado State University, concluding CWD can drive deer population declines, w...