About 125 million years ago, during the Cretaceous period, Tyrannosaurus roamed the land on continents that were positioned very differently than they are today. Ths skies were filled with Pterodactyls and a variety of other pterosaurs. The oceans teemed with giant sea dinosaurs like Mosasaurs and Elasmosaurids that grew longer than 50 feet. In the freshwaters, fish from the family Polyodontidae swam with their massive mouths wide open as they used electroreceptors located on their long, snout-like rostrums to detect weak electric fields which indicated the presence of prey items like zooplankton in the water column. There are six known species of these paddlefish. All but one of those species are extinct. The surviving species, the American paddlefish (Polyodon spathula) native to North America, continues to swim in our waterways with very few morphological changes since the earliest fossil records of the Early Cretaceous, 120 to 125 million years ago. While paddlefish populations have declined dramatically across their historic range, the state of Oklahoma has done a phenomenal job of conserving this magnificent species. Nels Rodefeld is the communication and education chief of the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation. Nels is a true paddlefish expert. Silvana Braculla Yaroschuk is the multistate conservation grants program manager for the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies. Silvana and podcast host Jesse Deubel had the honor of spending a day fishing for dinosaurs with Nels Rodefeld and the Assistant Director of Operations for the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation, Wade Free. It was an amazing experience full of excitement and education. Learn how the team from Oklahoma's state wildlife agency has implemented creative solutions to fund paddlefish conservation. Enjoy the listen!

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https://nmwildlife.org/