Biodiversity is a big word. It means that there is a variety of living organisms found in a particular area such as plants, mammals, amphibians, reptiles, insects, and other living things. They all live together.

Biodiversity has to do with life forms around us, from bacteria to buzzards, wildflowers to waterfowls and they way they all get along together in a particular place.

Did you know that scientists have identified and described about 1.4 milling living things? But they think there are about 30 million different things living on our planet!!! Did you know that out of the 250,000 plant species in the world, there are 25,000 of them in the United States and 3,000 of them in Kentucky. There are 20,000 types of fish in the world, 950 of them living in the United States, and 242 species in Kentucky. There are 1,200,000 kinds of insects in the world with 92,600 of them living in the United States, and we don't even know how many of them live in Kentucky. There are 9,100 kinds of amphibians and reptiles in the world with 454 identified in the United States and 105 kinds in Kentucky.

There are 8,600 kinds of birds in the world and 1,683 of them in the United States and 340 of them in Kentucky. There are 4,100 mammals in the world and 800 of those are found in the United States with only 75 of those found in Kentucky.

Kentucky has biodiversity. Did you know that the world's food supply depends on about 20 different plants that came form our native or wild ancestors? We may not know why certain plants and animals are important unless somebody studies them and protects them. Did you know that aspirin comes from willow bark? Did you know that penicillin comes from fruit mild? About half of all of our medicines come from plants.

Scientists have described less than one-half of all living things on this planet. Only one percent of those have been tested to see if they have something special that can help people. Every time a species is lost or becomes extinct, it may be the end of something that could have been really important in making a medicine or in making food in the future.

Did you know that you can tell how pure an environment is by some of the living things found there? Canaries use to be carried into the coal mines to check for gas build up. If the canary died, the miners knew the air was bad and they had to get out. Have you see the frogs that have missing legs or extra legs in the northern U.S.A.? This let the scientists know that something in their environment was polluted.

Freshwater mussels are found in our Harlan County streams and rivers. They get their food by filtering the water. If there is poison in the water, the mussels die. If there are a lot of freshwater mussels living in the water, that means the water is clean.

I think that biodiversity is an important thing to study because you can learn how nature and how the earth help each other and how they help us. We can also discover how to help them.

I go fishing with my dad. We go to different places in the county to fish. Sometimes we fish at Wallins, sometimes we go to Cumberland, sometimes we go to Martin's Fork. We go lots of different places because we like to fish.

One time my dad caught a big old pike at Martin's Fork Lake. He also caught a big old catfish. It weighed 10 pounds. I mostly catch bass. Seems like I always catch a bass or a red eye.

I use an open face reel. My dad uses a 33. Probably the best kind to use is a Johnson.

If you want to catch bass, they live under piles of bushes and stuff under the water where they have little places to hide. If you sling your worm down there and just let it lay in front of their nesting places where they hide, they will come out and get it. I jerk the line just a little bit to make the worm look like it is moving. Then I reel a little bit.

My favorite kind of fish to try and catch is a mud cat. You sling your line and worm out into the middle of the water where it is real calm and maybe muddy on the bottom. They can't see the worm there, but they can smell it. They will grab the worm and run with it. When you feel the mud cat take your bait, you have to give a jerk and try to set the hook. You have to have the hook hidden in the bait because if the mud cat sees a hook, he is too smart to take the hook.

We have been fishing for trout, but we have never caught one. We could never get them to bite. We used meal worms for bait. We have brown speckled trout in Harlan County.

When people catch hog suckers or carp, they will not eat them. They just leave them setting because these fish eat the eggs of other fish.

I know what the biggest fish is in the Cumberland River. It is a mud cat. Some people call it a channel catfish.

Some people would rather fish in the rivers and streams. Some people would rather fish in lakes. I would rather fish in a pond. People put different kinds of fish in their ponds. That is called stocking. It is easier to catch the fish when you know where they are!

Food, water, and shelter are the three things that make up a habitat. They must all three be found close together in an area if the area is going to have a lot of different plants and animals living there.

There use to be 1.6 million acres of wetlands in Kentucky that made our water pure and gave wildlife a place to live. Now there are only 26,000 acres of wetlands that are owned and protected by the government. 1.2 million acres have already been lost. There are still 360,000 acres that are not protected.

In the 1950's there use to be about 145 million ducks that migrated across North America. In the fall of 1989, they counted about 64 million. Scientists think this is because so much of the wetlands are gone. Twenty-seven percent of the different kinds of salamander species and 40 percent of frogs and toads, lay their eggs in small bodies of water like natural pools, or farm ponds.

Wetlands are among our most important natural area. More plants and animals live in the forested wetlands than anywhere else in the United States. Wetlands are important because they are natural filters, they take pollution out of the water, and they produce flood control because they store and hold floods and store runoff from rains.

If you have a wet area like a swamp, a bog, a marsh or a pond, you are lucky. You've got a place where vanishing wildlife can still live. You might find these kinds of animals there - waterfowl, frogs, turtles, salamanders, raccoons, mink, muskrats, wading birds, and songbirds.

The difference between a wetland and a pond is how deep they are and how long they stay full of water. Many wetlands dry up when there is little rainfall. This allows a lot of different kinds of plants to grow.

The future of the kinds of plants and animals and our wildlife will depend a lot on what we do about the wetlands that still remain.

Zebra mussels have only recently been found in Kentucky waterways. A Division of Water biologist who examined the mussels confirmed their identification. The mussels he looked at he thought were a little more than one year old and they were bigger than the same kind of mussels living in the Great Lakes.

These zebra mussels will have babies this year. One female can have as many as 30,000 to 1 million eggs per breeding season.

Zebra Mussles are tiny, shaped like triangles, with thin shells that have stripes that look like zebras. They make colonies and stick to almost anything in the water.

Zebra mussels are a bad thing to have in our waterways in Kentucky. They clog water intakes, damage boats and motors, and disrupt or destroy aquatic ecosystems. This is bad for the mussels who are already living here, also.

Zebra mussels were first discovered in the Great Lakes in 1988. They were first found in Kentucky waters in 1991. At first they were found in the Ohio River about 30 miles downstream of Paducah. In 1992 the zebra mussels were found near Louisville and Cincinnati. Now they have been found in the Lower Cumberland rivers, the Ohio River and in the Lower Tennessee.

Zebra mussels are spreading farther and faster than anyone thought they would.