Eastern Fence Lizards

Back when I was a kid, when we weren't spying on the local mammoth herd or trying not to be on the dinner menu for the saber-toothed tigers, we used to catch 'fence lizards'. Best I can remember these little suckers were about 6 or 8 inches long, and the males had dark blue on either side of their belly. Caught and kept a ton of these--fed them rollie-pollies, beetles, etc.
Anyone keep these now? Is it even legal to catch and keep these, since they are an endemic species?

I never saw them when I was younger, in fact, this year (maybe last year) was the first time I had ever seen one. Blue Tailed Skinks were the popular lizard to catch until you got bit!

When I was in san Diego I saw a ton of these guys... They were very fast and pretty sneaky to be honest lol... Granted I was at work when I saw them the most so I didn't have a lot of time try and catch them.. but they were pretty awesome looking...

Growing up i had never saw any of them at all. Just like Focal said, Blue Tail Skinks were everywhere but about 4 or 5 years ago i saw my first Eastern Fence while at work. I think it is legal to keep them

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ive hatched these out before just for fun. Heres one I saw in early fall hanging out near my
Carolina Reaper pepper plants.

And skinks can be territorial and aggressive. u don't usually see them living to close together with fences

Eastern fence lizards populations have declined in VA mainly due to feral (outside) cats, pesticides and habitat destruction/alteration. You can keep up to 5 individual eastern fence lizards in VA. Unfortunately, like our native skinks, fence lizards don't typically do well in captivity for the long term. In the wild these lizards consume a wide variety of invertebrates which is very difficult to duplicate in captivity.

I see them every year fairly frequently at my house in the woodpile, on the house foundation, and on our fence posts but then we have no feral cats nor much in the way of pesticides killing their food supply.  I use a few smaller ones in October and September to scent mouse pinks for kingsnake hatchlings.

Back when I was a kid, I spent some time in germany we would go out and catch some kind of small lizards in the farmers fields all the time. We would keep them in food pans gotten from the army. and collect bugs for feed. We were bad keepers no heat, no UVB (not even around in the stone age) nothing, but we kept them and they were always laying eggs. But it was fun. This thread reminded me of those old days.