AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
North Carolina has one of the fastest growing populations in the country, and it's not hard to see why - the beaches, the mountains, all of the great restaurants and The Research Triangle and plenty of ants. So it's no wonder that armadillos want to live there. These armored animals are slowly laying claim to the Tar Heel State. Our next guest says, in a decade or so, they may live in all of the state's 100 counties. Colleen Olfenbuttel is the Game Mammals and Surveys unit supervisor with the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission. Welcome to the program.
COLLEEN OLFENBUTTEL: Thanks for having me. I always get excited to talk about our newest resident in North Carolina.
RASCOE: I'm very interested in this 'cause I'm like, armadillos in North Carolina - when did armadillos start showing up in my home state?
OLFENBUTTEL: Yeah. Well, I got the phone call in 2008 about a credible observation of an armadillo in a county in western North Carolina, and it has increased tremendously since that phone call.
RASCOE: So are there any indications, like, how they made this journey into the state?
OLFENBUTTEL: Yeah. Pretty much, they did it on their four little legs.
RASCOE: OK (laughter).
OLFENBUTTEL: You know, we get a lot of jokes that, oh, these armadillos jumped off the back of a truck from Florida bringing palm trees to a nursery, but they did it on their own. You know, armadillos are well-established in Tennessee, Georgia, South Carolina, Alabama. So it's just, we were proximate to an established population, and as those armadillo populations increased in those states, the surplus started wandering into our state.
RASCOE: So how are they affecting the environment in North Carolina?
OLFENBUTTEL: Yeah. That's a question that I don't have an answer to, but there's evidence that maybe armadillos, just like beavers, are ecosystem engineers. And what we mean by that is, you know, here's an animal that can really change and modify the habitat, which might have actual benefits or detriments to other species. In the case with an armadillo, they build these burrows that can provide refuge for them. It provides a place they can have their young, a place they can shelter from weather, a place they can escape predators. And researchers in Arkansas determined that these burrows provided shelter, provided dens, provided resting areas, provided foraging opportunities, protection from weather and temperatures for a whole host of other species, which is why, in addition to the armadillo having all these other nicknames such as hoover hog, Texas turkey, little armored one, ecosystem engineer might be yet another nickname for the armadillo.
RASCOE: I mean, and you're clearly monitoring this population in North Carolina. Do you think that there'll ever be a need to control the population of armadillos?
OLFENBUTTEL: The answer is yes, but armadillos, they're hard to control. After armadillos have been through, it looks like miniature land mimes have gone off. I mean, it's pretty extensive damage. So, you know, we do allow people to hunt armadillos year-round. They can be trapped during our regulated trapping season. And then outside that trapping season, we do allow our certified licensed wildlife control agents to issue depredation permits to take armadillos that are causing damage. But obviously, we aren't really controlling them because they've been expanding out of South America since at least the 1500s, and they continue to march onward. Just they're so adaptable. You know, they're one of the most adaptable mammals we have in North and South America.
RASCOE: That's Colleen Olfenbuttel with the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission. Thank you for talking with me.
OLFENBUTTEL: Thank you very much, Ayesha. I really enjoyed it. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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