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White oak, ramps, dogwood. All these are plants important to the Cherokee tradition, and the Forest Service has teamed with the Cherokee to expand scientific and cultural understanding of these plants and more on the part of Cherokee students.
Poaching isn’t just about the illegal harvest of elephant tusks and rhino horns – it can be a serious issue here in the southern Appalachians, impacting game animals, hurting the chances of recovering endangered species, and affecting our ability to continue harvesting traditional forest products like ginseng.
Many people have heard about white-nose syndrome, the fungal disease responsible for killing more than a million bats in the eastern United States that has left biologists, researchers, and land managers scrambling to halt its spread and reverse the damage done – an effort still very much under way, and far, far from completion.
The North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission and the National Wild Turkey Federation are offering free turkey hunting seminars across North Carolina in March and April in anticipation of the spring turkey season
Researchers recently found a nuisance algae in Jackson County’s Tuckasegee River, prompting calls for anglers to be especially diligent when cleaning fishing equipment.
Power companies, the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, and state and federal agencies have come together to conserve the sicklefin redhorse, a fish found in only six Appalachian counties worldwide and being considered for the federal endangered species list.
Tax time approaches, and in North Carolina this provides an easy opportunity to support wildlife conservation.
Over 50 years ago, Congress created the Land and Water Conservation Fund, a program that uses revenues from offshore oil and gas drilling in public waters to purchase land and easements for conservation and public recreation. The program has supported more than 42,000 national, state and local parks and outdoor recreation projects in all 50 states.
According to U.S. Forest Service researchers and their partners, between 2000 and 2012 the world lost 660,000 square miles of forest, an area more than twice the size of Texas.
All American eels hatch from eggs in the Sargasso Sea, an area of the Atlantic Ocean east of the Bahamas and south of Bermuda. From there, the young eels head west, swimming up streams from Canada to South America, where they spend most of their lives, returning to the ocean to reproduce and die.
Hemlock woolly adeglid, a tiny Asian insect, has killed hemlock trees across the southern Appalachians, opening up the forest canopy to additional sunlight.
Head outdoors and enjoy some of the country’s most magical places — America’s National Wildlife Refuges offer unparalleled opportunities to experience the great outdoors and see a rich diversity of wildlife in beautiful natural settings. If that wasn’t enticement enough, refuges that normally charge entrance fees will offer an additional incentive — free admission on certain days in 2016
In the United States, the vast majority of wildlife management is done by state wildlife agencies – the same folks who issue your hunting and fishing licenses. But there are some areas where the federal government steps in and takes a larger role.
Ducks fly up and down North America each year, and they are avidly hunted. What if hunters in Virginia shot all the ducks before they could get to North Carolina? Migratory birds, including ducks, is an area where the federal government steps in and plays a key role.
A recent afternoon found staff from the Fish and Wildlife Service and Southern Highlands Reserve bushwhacking through Pisgah National Forest collecting red spruce cones - a first step in a multi-year process to restore red spruce to areas where it was found before the extensive logging and burning at the turn of the 20th century.
Absent for more than half a century, lake sturgeon returned to North Carolina waters this fall as seven-thousand fish were released into the French Broad River.
The North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission, along with North Carolina State Parks, continue to stock trout into in Hanging Rock State Park’s lake, supporting the new Stokes County trout fishery created earlier this year.
Monitoring, or regularly going out and counting plants or animals following an established protocol, provides biologists with key information on the distribution of plants and animals and the well-being of individual populations.
Recognizing its incredible diversity of stream life and years of efforts to conserve that diversity, the Little Tennessee River basin has been designated the nation’s first Native Fish Conservation Area.
Great Smoky Mountains National Park invites all 4th-grade students to visit the park as part of the White House's new Every Kid in a Park program. The park offers a variety of activities that fourth graders and their family can enjoy, including guided discovery hikes, educational programs, self-guided junior ranger activities, and special events throughout the year.
The ridge we hiked along in Pisgah National Forest was open, dry, and on this day, hot. The area had recently experienced a fire and one of the benefits was the explosion of mountain golden heather, a threatened plant adapted to periodic fire.
Southern Appalachian Mountain bogs are one of the rarest habitats in the nation, and on my way to visit a North Georgia bog, our guides stopped to check a hog trap – designed to catch the hogs that were rooting in the bog, and damaging some of its rare plants.
Great Smoky Mountains National Park officials announced the closure of the Whiteoak Sink area effective now through March 31, 2016 to limit human disturbance to bat hibernation sites and help hikers avoid interactions with bats.
On a recent camping trip to Great Smoky Mountains National Park, it bore remembering that the park only allows outside firewood that is certified as being heated to the point that undesirable insects hitching a ride on the wood would be killed.
New research on the effects of warming temperatures and stream acidity projects average habitat losses of around 10 percent for coldwater aquatic species in southern Appalachian national forests – including up to a 20 percent loss of habitat in the Pisgah and Nantahala National Forests.
Whirling disease, a parasitic disease affecting trout and salmon, has been found in North Carolina.
Staff at the Asheville-based non-profit Monarch Rescue recently reported that monarch butterfly eggs and caterpillars were found at a pollinator garden they worked with students to install at Yancey County’s Mountain Heritage High School.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recently announced 37.2 million dollars in grants to 20 states to support the conservation of threatened and endangered species across the nation, and a portion of that money is coming to the southern Appalachians.
Fresh off of discovering whirling disease for the first time in North Carolina, fisheries biologists with the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission recently confirmed gill lice on rainbow trout in three North Carolina streams.
The Blue Ridge Parkway, the National Park Service unit that stretches from Great Smoky Mountains National Park, along the Blue Ridge Mountains, to Virginia’s Shenandoah National Park, is hosting a bio-blitz in mid-September.
We’re in the heat of summer, and one thing is evident – river recreation is on the uptick this year. Why not add a new dimension to hitting the water?
Despite the elevation, it was quite hot, as the midday sun fell on the dry ridge running along Linville Gorge. We were there to monitor mountain golden heather, a threatened plant. Despite being a Wednesday, an off day for outdoor recreation, during three three or four hours we were in the sun counting plants, several people hiked by on the trail that bisected our work area.
The 2015-2016 Federal Duck Stamp was recently unveiled, and features a pair of ruddy ducks painted by wildlife artist Jennifer Miller of Olean, New York. Last fall, a panel of five judges chose Miller’s art from among 186 entries at the Federal Duck Stamp Art Contest. Miller is the third woman to win the Federal Duck Stamp Contest.
Bears have been in the news a lot recently, most notably related to a hiker who was pulled from his hammock by a bear in Great Smoky Mountains National Park. According to the Park Service’s report, the young man, and his father, who were travelling together, had properly stored their equipment, food, and packs on aerial food storage cables.
On the heels of numerous pollinator gardens being installed in western North Carolina, the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency has announced a major effort to help save monarch butterflies.
I’ve often talked about southern Appalachian Mountain bogs, their rarity, and the rareness of many of the plants and animals found in them. There’s a bog south of Asheville that’s a bittersweet place. Despite development in its vicinity, it still hangs on, and in fact people in the community recognize its importance. What makes it a sad place is it used to be home to one of the best bog turtle populations in the southeast. Until those turtles were poached to feed an illegal pet trade.
On May fourth, the northern long-eared bat was added to the federal endangered species list as a threatened animal. What makes this listing especially notable, is it’s the first related to the fungal disease white-nose syndrome, which has killed millions of bats in eastern and central North America.
In the wake of dramatically declining populations, last year the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service was asked to place the monarch butterfly on the endangered species list, beginning a process of reviewing data and scientific literature to determine if listing is warranted.
The North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission and the National Wild Turkey Federation are offering free turkey hunting seminars in Henderson County’s Mills River community on April 1st and 2nd in anticipation of the upcoming spring turkey season.
The monarch is probably America’s best known butterfly, and the subject of extensive conservation efforts as it has experienced a dramatic decline in recent years, to the point the Fish and Wildlife Service has been asked to place it on the endangered species list.
While monarch butterflies are found across the United States — as recently as 1996 numbering some 1 billion — their numbers have declined by approximately 90 percent in recent years, a result of numerous threats.
The Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service are investigating the shooting of an bald eagle in east Tennessee. A reward of up to $10,000 is being offered for information leading to a conviction of the person or persons responsible for wounding the eagle.
It’s a cold day, with snow falling, as a group of biologists hikes across a southern Appalachian bog. Biologist Sue Cameron has found a hole in the ground that looks promising. Standing in the mud, she rolls up her sleeve, gets down on her knees, and sticks her hand in the hole, hoping to find a bog turtle. She comes up empty handed – but this trip wasn’t intended as a turtle search and the turtle happens to be one of the rarest in the United States.
As part of the ongoing effort to combat the hemlock woolly adelgid in the Southern Appalachians, the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission recently released predator beetles into Buncombe County’s Sandy Mush Game Lands.
For the fourth time in 80 years, Great Smoky Mountains National Park had over ten million annual visitors in a single year. In 2014, 10,099,275 visitors visited the park, an 8% increase over 2013. The other years when visitation topped ten million were 1987, 1999, 2000.
I’ve previously spoke about a proposal by Great Smoky Mountains National Park to limit the spread of invasive insects into the park by limiting the type of firewood that could be brought into the park, and come March 2015, those news rules will go into effect.
Every seat in the conference room was filled, with more chairs brought in for the overflow. In the room were aquatic biologists, geneticists, fish propagation experts, dam management experts – a host of biologists offering what they knew about the sicklefin redhorse.
It’s a new year, full of promise and opportunity. It’s the annual clean slate, when we look ahead, full of thoughts about how to enrich our minds and bodies, and generally become better people
Nearly 6,000 acres of Pisgah National Forest’s Grandfather Ranger District were restored this past year, thanks to the help of numerous partners.
We hear people talk about ground-level ozone as an air pollution problem. On high-ozone days, we’re cautioned against outdoor activity for the good of our lungs, and elevated ozone can impact plants – damaging the leaves of plants sensitive to ozone. Ozone is not emitted directly, but forms in the air when nitrogen oxides, largely from auto exhaust and power plants, react with hydrocarbons on hot, sunny days with little wind.
The US Forest Service, has begun taking a predictive look at the future of Southern forests, coming out with an initial report looking at the Southern Appalachians. The results aren’t especially unexpected, but still warrant the attention of forest users and community leaders, because it does show a change in our forests and how they are used.
The interrupted rocksnail, rough hornsnail, and Georgia pigtoe mussel are all endangered species, having disappeared from 90 percent or more of their historical ranges, largely due to the damming of rivers where they live. All three are native to the Coosa River drainage in Alabama and North Georgia, the Georgia pigtoe also occurring in east Tennessee.
In 1910, there were 1251 people living in Cataloochee Valley – divided between Little and Big Cataloochee, making it collectively the largest community in the Smoky Mountains at the time. The coming of Great Smoky Mountains National Park brought an end to the community, but the creation of the park also meant the preservation of several buildings in the Cataloochee Valley, providing us a glimpse of what life was like there one hundred years ago. Unfortunately, recently life in Cataloochee hasn’t been so tranquil.
Officials at Great Smoky Mountains National Park are proposing to help protect park forests by further limiting the type of firewood brought into the park.
As the fatal bat disease white nose syndrome continues to spread, leaving millions of dead bats in its wake, land managers continue working to check its spread. In an effort to prevent the human spread of the disease by clothes or equipment, most federal and state caves have been closed to the public, and the Regional Forester for the Southern Region of the U.S. Forest Service recently announced an extension of the closure order for all caves and mines on southeastern National Forest system lands until 2019 to help prevent the spread of white-nose syndrome.
Seeing redhead ducks in the local pond on my drive home from work is a little treat. Overall redheads aren’t rare ducks, but the Southern Appalachians are not a hotbed of duck activity and it’s nice to see some migrant ducks amidst the resident mallards that seem to dominate the local waterfowl scene.
After looking at more than 3,800 free-ranging deer in 2013 and 2014, the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission has not detected the fatal, untreatable wildlife affliction, chronic wasting disease, despite its presence in Virginia and other nearby states.
It was quite balmy in Asheville on that particular late-May morning. While the weather may be warm and clear in town, it’s no indication of conditions above 6000 feet, on the shoulders of Mount Mitchell, the highest peak east of the Mississippi River.
On July 4, the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission invites anglers and would-be anglers of all ages to go fishing — for free.
My daughter and I walked past the racks of fishing rods for loan, found a quiet spot on the bank of Lake Powhatan, a Forest Service lake on the edge of Asheville, and settled in for a morning of fishing. We didn’t catch anything, but we still enjoyed the stillness of the spot, and the opportunity to simply observe the natural world around us, from the dragonflies to the turtle that swam by. When we tired of fishing, hot dogs were coming off the grill for lunch.
This year, firefly viewing at the Elkmont Campground area of Great Smoky Mountains National Park will be from June 4 through June 11.
Georgia aster is an uncommon plant that declined for decades, to the verge of receiving federal protection. However, this spring, numerous organizations, private and public, are stepping up to conserve the plant in an effort that should keep it off the endangered species list.
We all stood on the bank of Mitchell County’s North Toe River, watching as the track hoe chipped away at the old, decrepit Spruce-Pine dam. Removing the crumbling dam allowed fish to move upstream and take advantage of that habitat, and removed a safety hazard for local paddlers. The dam’s removal was paid for in part by Partners for Fish and Wildlife, a program of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service designed to help private landowners improve fish and wildlife habitat.
The North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission will open approximately 1,000 miles of hatchery-supported trout waters in 25 western counties at 7 a.m. on April 5. The season will run through Feb. 28, 2015.
Biologists with the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission are asking anglers to help stop the spread of the rusty crayfish — a destructive, non-native crayfish that has invaded the upper Catawba River in western North Carolina.
This year, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will distribute $1.1 billion to state and territorial fish and wildlife agencies as part of an annual distribution that has become one of the most sustainable sources of funding for conservation and recreation.
The North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission, in partnership with students at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, is holding a contest to generate a new license plate design for the Commission’s Wildlife Diversity Program, which does research, conservation and monitoring work benefiting nongame animals such as songbirds, sea turtles, eagles, salamanders, frogs, turtles, and bats.
The Appalachian elktoe is a an endangered freshwater mussel found in a handful of Western North Carolina Rivers, and in a sliver of the Nolichucky River in East Tennessee. For years the plight of the elktoe looked to be improving. The Cheoah River population was expanding thanks to the return of water previously piped overland to a power generating station. It was expanding upstream in the South Toe River, and down the Little River to the French Broad in Transylvania County.
For the fifth time in ten years, North Georgia’s Tallulah Gorge will see a prescribed fire, as part of an effort to restore and maintain wildlife habitat in and along the two-mile-long canyon.
Culminating a 20-year partnership with the state of Oregon, the Army Corps of Engineers, and private landowners, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recently proposed removing the Oregon chub from the federal endangered species list. If it goes through, this would be the first fish delisted due to recovery. Fewer than 1,000 fish were known to exist when it was placed on the endangered species list. Today, the population stands at more than 150,000 fish.
Western North Carolina hikers can now enjoy three new trails near the Blue Ridge Parkway, thanks to private citizens, The Conservation Fund, the Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy and the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission.
Red wolves are the wolves of the south. They could once be found from Texas, across the south, and up the Atlantic coast. However, due to eradication efforts and habitat loss, they nearly became extinct. In a last-ditch effort to save the species, an attempt was made to capture all remaining wild red wolves. Of the 17 captured, 14 became the founders of a zoo-based breeding program. Although the release of propagated wolves was tried and failed in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, is has been a success in the swampy low country of eastern North Carolina, where about 100 red wolves roam. Nearly 200 additional red wolves are in captivity and part of the managed breeding program. You can see these animals for yourself at the Western North Carolina Nature Center in Asheville.
The story goes that fall foliage was such a vibrant red that someone likened it to the devil’s britches. The name stuck to the Devil’s Britches hiking trail and now Devil’s Britches IPA is the name of the latest beer in Highland Brewing Company’s seasonal line-up. Highland Brewing has established a strong tradition of naming their seasonal beers after area mountain features, which segued nicely into a partnership with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and the Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy, a local land trust which has done much to protect high-elevation land in the area.
Oftentimes in endangered species conservation, we’re faced with a situation where you have a small, and vulnerable population of imperiled plants or animals, but you have a large, healthy population elsewhere, or you can successfully propagate and raise them in captivity. In these situations, one of the most basic conservation tools is augmentation – assuming the habitat is okay, you augment the small, vulnerable population with individuals from the large, healthy population, or from those propagated in captivity.
I was recently passing through Atlanta with a friend, who happens to be a bird biologist, and an avid recreational birder. It was her first time in the city, and as we approached it along the interstate, she looked up at skyscraper after skyscraper, most covered with glass, and she exclaimed simply, “I’ll bet a lot of birds die here.”
The tiny fish in the water-filled plastic bag wouldn’t catch the eye of the casual observer, but to biologists they were part of a great hope. The fish were spotfin chub, a tiny, threatened fish, and these were carefully reared in a fish hatchery and bagged for transport and release into the Cheoah River where hopefully they would thrive.
Of the highest 41 peaks is in the Eastern United State, 40 are in the Southern Appalachians. These peaks are effectively mountaintop islands, rising above lower elevations to be outposts of cold, often moist, habitat where fir, spruce, and others trees associated with more northern climates, live.
Citing concerns over declines in wild ginseng, the supervisor of the Pisgah and Nantahala National Forests is limiting ginseng harvest in those areas. A permit is required to harvest wild ginseng on National Forests, and it must be collected during a designated harvest season.
With a rash of media reports of bear sightings across North Carolina, the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission reminds residents not to panic and to remain calm if you see a black bear. Bears are not inherently dangerous and seeing a bear can be a once-in-a-lifetime experience for residents to appreciate from a safe distance.
The N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission is asking for your help determining who and why someone dumped a bear carcass marked in white paint onto a Buncombe County, North Carolina road.
Three Jackson County, North Carolina towns — Sylva, Webster and Dillsboro — recently joined the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission’s Mountain Heritage Trout Waters Program
Young wildlife may be cute — and it may be tempting to bring a fawn, cub, or chick home — but tiny animals are not pets. Human encounters with young animals often increase in the spring, when many wildlife species bear young, but touching or feeding them can hurt wildlife and jeopardize human health.
In a building at a state fish hatchery in Marion, North Carolina are a series of tubs with an elaborate piping network leading in and out. Within these tubs the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission is working to rear some of North Carolina’s most endangered freshwater mussels in captivity, including the Appalachian elktoe mussel.
The Little Tennessee River runs wide and deep just below Emory Dam, outside Franklin North Carolina. In the late-morning sun on an April day, a jon boat plied the water back and forth. Protruding from the bow and dropping into the water was a pair of electrodes wired to an on-board generator. Perched in the bow was a biologist with a long-handled net waiting to scoop up fish stunned by the electric current flowing through the water.
The biologists eyed the bat box on the banks of the Tuckasegee River. Counter in hand, they tallied how many bats were using the box. This is the fourth year they’ve done these counts at a string of bat roosting boxes along the river. And this spring they witnessed a precipitous decline in the number of bats using the sites from past years. The suspected culprit is white-nosed syndrome, the bat disease that has decimated bat populations across Eastern North America.
The Southern Appalachians are home to three species of endangered bats – Indiana, gray, and Virginia big-eared. Indiana and gray bats have already seen declines from white nose syndrome.
For wildlife biologists, winter is often the down time of the year – a time to compile data from the year’s field work and set about the laborious, and indoor, task of writing reports. However, for people who track a handful of animals, winter is time to get out and about.
Japanese honeysuckle – for many, those yellow and white blooms are as indicative of summer as fireflies, watermelon, and baseball. All of us probably have memories of plucking the flowers and pulling the pistil through the flower’s base to capture that drop of nectar.
There was a joke going around recently about how we have the collective knowledge of humanity accessible through a device that fits in our pocket, which we mainly use to look at pictures of cats. It’s kind of amazing the frivolity that lies at the heart of most of our smart phone use. However, there are opportunities to use these tools to make this world a better place.
What happened to the Lost Colony at Roanoke? Where is the Lost Dutchman Mine? Did Lee Harvey Oswalt act alone? Where do Grandfather Mountain’s female bats go in the summer? Tremendous mysteries all.
Every five years the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service conducts a national survey providing a look at the level of participation and spending on wildlife-based recreation, such as hunting, fishing, and wildlife watching. It’s done at the request of all the state fish and wildlife agencies, and the actual questioning is done by the U.S. Census bureau, who spoke with more than 48,000 households in 2011. The results from this latest survey are beginning to come in.
Invasive species management is an on-going challenge for land managers as there always seem to be new or spreading outbreaks. On a recent afternoon, biologists working at a bog in Henderson County actually experimented with using a shop-vacuum to remove Japanese stilt-grass seeds, sadly to no avail. Also called Nepalese browntop or by its genus name, microstegium, in the United States, this Asian plant was first seen in the Knoxville area around 1919, and its suspected it was used as packing material for porcelain.
The Powell River flows southwest out of Virginia’s coal country and into east Tennessee, before its waters eventually flow into the Tennessee River, draining some of the most rural land in the Southern Appalachians.
Few children ever get the opportunity to wade into a stream, shoes on, while their teacher not only looks one, but encourages them. However, nearly every fifth grade student in Yancey and Mitchell counties recently had just that opportunity as they went out to the North and South Toe rivers for this year’s Toes in the Toe Discovery – an annual event that aims to get kids out of the classroom and to a river in their community for a day of learning.
Fall is upon us, and amid the leaf raking, firewood splitting, pumpkin harvesting, and other fall chores, this is an opportunity for planting shrubs and trees.
Invasive species are plants and animals that are not from here but have been introduced and are thriving in the absence of their natural controls, to the detriment of our native species. Their impacts is especially notable in the Southern Appalachians, as they’re responsible for the loss of the American chestnut, the current decline of hemlock trees, and patches of kudzu across the region. Japanese knotweed is another.
Yancey County’s South Toe River is one of the most beautiful in the Southern Appalachians. Its headwaters are protected by Pisgah National Forest and Mount Mitchell State Park and it flows through a sparsely developed landscape all the way to its confluence with the North Toe River.
Invasive exotic species are plants and animals that are not from here but have been introduced and are thriving in the absence of their natural controls, to the detriment of our native species. Kudzu is perhaps the most famous of these, a Japanese plant widely planted in the last century, but there are a host of others, including the chestnut blight that removed chestnuts from our Appalachian forests, the balsam woolly adelgid which has killed Fraser firs on our highest mountaintops, and the hemlock woolly adelgid which is killing hemlock trees.
This summer’s West Nile virus numbers are up. What better time to take a closer look at the vector for this disease – mosquitoes.
A pair of biologists sat patiently beside the Tuckasegee River, staring at a set of wooden boxes mounted on a wooden pole on the rivers’ bank, waiting for the sun to go down.
The North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission wants your help.
Commission biologists noticed an unusually high number of cases of hemorrhagic disease in white-tailed deer in Wilkes and Surry counties, and are asking the public to report sightings of sick or diseased animals.
Elk once roamed the southern Appalachian Mountains and the eastern United States before over-harvesting extirpated them from the area in the late 1700’s. The experimental release of elk into the Great Smoky Mountains, which began in 2001 with a population of 25 elk, has been successful. To this point, the population has been growing and the park has been monitoring the herd with the assistance of radio collars.
Though the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service currently proposes creating a National Wildlife Refuge to protect rare Southern Appalachian Mountain Bogs, efforts to conserve these areas have been going on for decades, with farmers playing a key role.
White-nose syndrome, the disease responsible for killing millions of North American bats continues to spread in Western North Carolina. Earlier this spring the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission confirmed the disease in Haywood County, the fifth North Carolina county where the disease has been discovered.
As the bat disease white nose syndrome continues to spread in the Southern Appalachians, the U. S. Fish & Wildlife Service recently announced 1.4 million dollars to fund research into the disease and ways to control it. Funding for the grants was provided under the Endangered Species Act.
A standard tool for biologists working to recover endangered species is either breeding rare plants or animals in captivity or raising them in captivity to increase their likelihood of survival. This can be quite complicated, as it involves plants or animals that are extremely rare, and for which we know little about their life cycles.
We came to a stop on the shoulder of the dirt road, got out of the car, crossed the road, and the driver pointed to a spot near the top of a rocky cliff. It was a golden eagle nest, and on it was the first golden eagle I had ever seen. But that was Montana.
This tiny olive dater is a fish is rare enough to get the attention of state and federal wildlife biologists, so any help it gets is welcome. The fish had never been found upstream of Dillsboro Dam in North Carolina’s Tuckasegee River. However, that dam was removed two years ago, and biologists have since discovered one of the darters upstream of the former dam site, hopefully expanding a range previously limited by a massive stone wall.
The dry, late-winter brush covering the field was several feet high as we walked across, side-by-side, looking for birds. Then, with startling suddenness, a bird shot out of the brush, flying for several yards before settling back down to earth.
The Chattooga River is perhaps best known across the nation as the place where the movie Deliverance was filmed, beginning what seems like endless banjo and paddling jokes. Locally, the Chattooga enjoys a reputation as home to some of the wildest angling and paddling experiences in the Southern Appalachians.
Tax time. A burden, with a bit of a consolation for those receiving a refund. But for people in North Carolina, it’s also an opportunity.
When you work with endangered species, you sometimes reflect on those that may disappear in your life, or the pristine places that have become spoiled. However, our generation is poised to bear witness to the near opposite – the revival and return of what was once one of our most important species here in the Eastern United States.
Great Smoky Mountains National Park has long held the title of the nation’s most visited national park, but a recent study shows it holds the top spot in terms of visitor spending.
Most people don’t get the opportunity to spend a day with biologists snorkeling a river looking for mussels, hiking through the high country keeping tabs on northern flying squirrels, or going underground to check on bat populations. I’m blessed in that I get to do all of those things on occasion.
Whooping cranes are one of the rarest animals in the world, with only between 525 and 550 remaining. Of those, two recently touched down in Western North Carolina. Biologists recently confirmed the presence of a pair of whooping cranes in Clay County, North Carolina, marking the first time the birds have been documented wintering in Western North Carolina.
I previously spoke about the arrest and conviction of Johnny Carl Grooms of Cosby, Tennessee for conspiring to distribute oxycodone and cocaine, interstate travel to further drug trafficking, possession of oxycodone with the intent to distribute, distribution of cocaine, possession of firearms by a convicted felon, and illegally trafficking in ginseng. Grooms was recently sentenced, and his crimes earned him more than 24 years in prison.
In the depths of winter, it may be a little hard to think ahead to early spring, but soon spring peepers, tiny frogs found across the Eastern United States and among the first frogs to emerge and begin mating, will begin their calling.
The holidays -the gifts, the time with family and friends, the question of what to do when not eating or watching football.
Ginseng and goldenseal are widely known and used for their purported medicinal properties. Galax is a native plant harvested for use in flower arrangements. White oak is used in traditional Cherokee basket weaving. The Southern Appalachians are home to a botanical bounty of wild plants that have found plenty of human uses. In many cases, behind those uses is a market where these plants are bought and sold, usually legally, sometimes not so. A great challenge for all involved in the legal trade of these plants is ensuring they are properly managed and sustainably harvested.
The importance of streams, in general, and especially here in the mountains, can’t be understated. For many they’re the source of drinking water, and here in the mountains they’re a key part of our outdoor recreation culture, which in turn fuels an outdoor recreation economy. In western North Carolina, our streams are home to three endangered species – the Appalachian elktoe mussel, the littlewing pearlymussel, and the spotfin chub – a tiny fish found in the Little Tennessee River.
The U.S.D.A. Forest Service recently announced prescribed burns near a pair of popular Western North Carolina recreation areas – Max Patch and Harmon Den, both in Haywood County.
The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service is the keeper of the federal endangered species list. One of the species we’re considering adding to that list is the Grandfather Mountain crayfish.
My daily commute usually takes me by a small patch of forest owned by the University of North Carolina at Asheville. Going home one recent afternoon, I went around a sharp curve and came upon a bump in the road. A bump that was slowly moving.
Ten of the world’s most endangered birds recently flew across the Southern Appalachians, led by a trio of ultra-light aircraft.
Cold weather has descended upon the Southern Appalachians and on some mornings, perhaps most mornings, soft, warm flannel sheets make the notion of hibernation seem incredibly appealing.
We wanted to get to a remote section of Great Smoky Mountains National Park to do some bat work. To get there by land would require going by foot nearly the entire way and turn a day’s worth of work into a three-day expedition. However, going by boat cuts out all that leg work. The Smokies has a program to control feral hogs, and we were able to catch a ride with a couple of their hog control staff travelling by boat to their work area.
Scientists recently announced a break-through in their study of the deadly bat disease white-nose syndrome. First discovered in a New York cave in 2006, the disease has spread in all directions, including into the Southern Appalachians, and is blamed for the deaths of more than a million bats.
Ginseng and goldenseal are widely known and used for their purported medicinal properties. Galax is a native plant harvested for use in flower arrangements. White oak is used in traditional Cherokee basket weaving. The Southern Appalachians are home to a botanical bounty of wild plants that have found plenty of human uses. In many cases, behind those uses is a market where these plants are bought and sold, usually legally, sometimes not so. A great challenge for all involved in the legal trade of these plants is ensuring they are properly managed and sustainably harvested.
At first glance it appears to be merely a patch of woods and farm field beside an established Flat Rock neighborhood. However, to biologists it’s Ochlawaha bog, a degraded remnant of one of the rarest natural communities in North America, and it’s in the beginning stages of a resurgence.
A lot of people in the Southern Appalachians take their fly fishing seriously. Come March, anglers will get an opportunity to test their skills head to head against anglers from across the region as the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission and Davidson River Outfitters host the fourth annual Pisgah Fly Masters fly-fishing tournament.
There’s a long list of reasons why we should protect our biodiversity – the variety of genes, species, and natural communities found in our world. One reason that’s becoming increasingly understood and appreciated is that biodiversity protects ecosystem services. Ecosystem services is a somewhat obtuse way to describe all those things the natural world does for us – from plants producing oxygen to wetlands cleaning water.
It seems this winter has seen a flurry of activity in the capture and prosecution of wildlife smugglers.
Once you see a hellbender, you never forget it. Hellbenders are salamanders, but not just any salamanders. They’re big salamanders. Growing up to three feet in rare instances, it’s fairly easy to comes across individuals at least a foot long here in the Southern Appalachians. Despite their size, they’re essentially harmless to humans and are part of a healthy stream ecosystem.
I recently spoke about a flock of critically endangered whooping cranes flying across a corner of the Southern Appalachians on their way from Wisconsin to Florida. Things were going well for the small group of birds, except for one who was hampered by a leg injury, but still had a long and healthy life ahead of him as a breeding, education, or research bird.
For years the water in western North Carolina’s Cheoah River was collected and piped overland to a power station on the neighboring Little Tennessee River, leaving behind a river bed fed by a trickle of water coming through the dam and water flowing in from downstream tributaries. One of the great conservation success stories of recent years has been the return of flow to that dewatered stretch of river, a commitment made by Alcoa as part of the deal struck to allow them to continue using the river to generate electricity.
When it comes to endangered species conservation and the broader argument for protecting biodiversity – which includes not only the diversity of species, but also genes on a smaller level, and natural communities on a larger level, perhaps the most fundamental question is why?
People across the United States now have an incredibly simple way to help protect animals like tigers, rhinos and gorillas.
The first toe in the cold water of Yancey County’s South Toe River usually brings shrieks among many fifth-graders, but the excitement of getting to wade the river during school keeps them going.
The Southeastern United States, including the Southern Appalachians, is a global center of aquatic biodiversity, which includes nearly 500 different fish, more than 300 snails, and nearly 300 mussels.
Salmon are perhaps the most famous migratory fish in the United States, but here in the east, from Greenland to South America, we have the American eel. Spending most of it’s time in rivers, all American eels migrate to the Sargasso Sea to reproduce, and then young eels return to rivers to become adults.
The first bat was caught just as night set in, nearly immediately after biologists set the fine net designed to ensnare bats before they could sense its presence. Biologists immediately pulled the bat from the net and began the process of collecting data from it. Species, gender, and general age were determined. It was weighed. Wings were checked for damage – a sign of the deadly bat disease white-nose syndrome. It was tagged, then released. The scene was played out continuously from 9 p.m. to 1 a.m. on an early August night, and this was but one of ten stations set up that night and the next two nights.
Over lunch one afternoon in a restaurant on the corner of the Burnsville, North Carolina town square, Jake Blood expounded on a vision of a Yancey County connected by trails, where one could walk from downtown Burnsville up to the top of Mount Mitchell. A notion, he explained, that would not only be good for outdoor recreation, but also the health of community members, and the local economy.
The idea of picking up a young bird that seems to be orphaned or in trouble may seem advisable but can often do more harm than good.
Little Chucky Creek flows through scenic farmland of eastern Tennessee. Looking at it, you would never guess it’s the only place in the world where a tiny catfish, the Chucky madtom, lives. In fact, in the past 11 years, only three individuals have been found. Come September 8th, the madtom and three other Appalachian fish will be placed on the federal endangered species list.
We put our boats in Yancey County’s South Toe River at a small sandy beach amidst the abutments of the highway 19 bridge
White-nose syndrome is a deadly bat disease that has killed more than a million bats in the Eastern United States. Many have asked what this means for the long-term survival of entire species of bats, and we may be beginning to get an idea.
As the Tuckasegee River flows through the Jackson County community of Webster it flows over a V-shaped line of rocks. Far too carefully placed to be a natural formation, the rocks form one of the most intact remnants of a Cherokee fish weir.
BatFest 2011 is nearly upon us. Sunday, July 31st from 2:00 to 5:30 at the North Carolina Forest Service’s training center in Crossnore, North Carolina you’ll have your chance to learn everything you wanted to know about bats.
It was a small hole on the side of a cliff, viewable from just the right spot on a two-lane road in a far corner of North Carolina’s Transylvania County – amazing that anyone had ever seen it at all, must less recognized its significance.
Bats are an incredibly important part of our world – helping control insect populations and pollinating plants. Despite all of this, bats still suffer from an image problem based on ill-conceived notions that they’re aggressive toward people and are rampant transmitters of rabies.
Kid’s fishing days have been held for years across the nation. Usually falling in early June, they serve as an opportunity to expose kids, not simply to fishing, but to the outdoors. In Western North Carolina, the U.S.D.A Forest Service often hosts events, with the support of the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission, Trout Unlimited, the Western North Carolina Muskie Club, and others.
Following a four-day trial in U.S. District Court, a jury convicted Johnny Carl Grooms of Cosby, Tennessee, of conspiring to distribute oxycodone and cocaine, interstate travel to further drug trafficking, possession of oxycodone with the intent to distribute, distribution of cocaine, possession of firearms by a convicted felon, and illegally trafficking in ginseng. Grooms’s sentencing is set for October 3, and he faces up to life in prison as well as fines of over $8 million.
A dead bald eagle was discovered on Wednesday, May 4th at the Maggie Valley Festival Grounds located on Soco Road, US Highway 19 in Maggie Valley, North Carolina. An examination revealed the eagle had been recently shot and bullet fragments were removed from the carcass. The eagle was immature and lacked the characteristic adult white head and tail feathers which usually come in by the 6th year.
The Berry Cave salamander is found in only nine caves in eastern Tennessee. It faces threats from urban development near those caves, water contamination, and hybridization with spring salamanders.
While improvements in water quality can literally mean life or death for fish populations, there is another facet to the story of creating vibrant, bountiful, healthy rivers. What if a fish had miles and miles of cool, clear, clean river to enjoy, but couldn’t get to it? It’s an issue faced across the Southern Appalachians as poorly designed, installed, or maintained bridges and culverts can block passage by fish, crayfish, and other aquatic life.
It’s a little-known day among the litany of spring time holidays and celebrations, but here at the Fish & Wildlife Service, we like to think it important. Overshadowed by Earth Day, its April counterpart, May brings us Endangered Species Day.
As the bat disease white-nose syndrome continues decimating bat populations as it spreads across North America, a question many people have, is…so what? They’re just bats, what good are they?
Few animals get people as excited as cougars, and perhaps with good reason –they’re big, charismatic, carnivores, and in the Eastern United States, exceptionally rare.
In addition to horses and bourbon, Kentucky is known for its caves, and indeed, is home to Mammoth Cave National Park, with the world’s longest known cave system. Hand in hand with the incredible number of caves is the fact that Kentucky is an incredibly important state for our nation’s bat populations.
The spread of white-nose syndrome, the deadly bat disease, brings with it many questions, one of the most important, what will become of our bat populations?
Last year saw the completion of the census. Done very ten years as directed by the Constitution, it begins to provide a wonderful picture of who we are as a nation and how we’ve changed. However, every five years is another nation-wide survey that begins to provide us with a picture of who we are as outdoorsmen and women.
For biologists, the winter bat season has come to a close. Caves and mines have been explored. Bats have been counted and unfortunately for the Southern Appalachians, white-nose syndrome, the disease that is deadly to so many bats, was found in North Carolina.
Spring is upon us, and with it comes the annual northward migration of neo-tropical migratory birds returning from their Central and South American wintering grounds. One of those returning bird species is the golden-winged warbler, a tiny bird weighing in a little heavier than 3 pennies.
What simply looks like a swampy patch of land beside a farm field in Henderson County was actually once home to the most endangered plant in western North Carolina.
The team of biologists preparing to enter a Haywood, North Carolina mine suited up in two white Tyveck suits each and taped on rubber boots, and rubber gloves - this all part of an effort to help ensure the biologists aren’t a vector for the dreaded bat disease, white-nose syndrome.
What simply looks like a swampy patch of land beside a farm field in Henderson County was actually once home to the most endangered plant in western North Carolina.
The team of biologists preparing to enter a Haywood, North Carolina mine suited up in two white Tyveck suits each and taped on rubber boots, and rubber gloves - this all part of an effort to help ensure the biologists aren’t a vector for the dreaded bat disease, white-nose syndrome.
At first glance it appears to be merely a patch of woods and farm field beside an established Flat Rock neighborhood. However, to biologists it’s Ochlawaha bog, a degraded remnant of one of the rarest natural communities in North America, and it’s in the beginning stages of a resurgence.
A lot of people in the Southern Appalachians take their fly fishing seriously. Come March, anglers will get an opportunity to test their skills head to head against anglers from across the region as the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission and Davidson River Outfitters host the fourth annual Pisgah Fly Masters fly-fishing tournament.
Most of the kids entered the water with eager anticipation, net in hand, happily getting their shoes and shorts wet while adult not only looked on, but encouraged them to explore the river. It was the second annual Toe River Valley Festival, an event that brought nearly every 5th grader in North Carolina’s Yancey and Mitchell County’s out into a river in their community.
In a tiny meeting room in Nebo, North Carolina, at the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, planning began in earnest for the 2011 Bat Blitz – an effort that will bring dozens of biologists from across the Southeast to North Carolina’s Avery County for an intensive three days of collecting information on the area’s bat populations.
Our two-year old daughter has picked up a fascination with spiders, stemming from, as near as we can interpret, a bad dream involving the 8-legged creatures. Perhaps a little odd, since to our knowledge she’s never had a negative interaction with the animals, but now she takes the time to call attention to any spider webs she comes across and pauses and stares curiously at any spiders she finds.
One of the challenges of looking at the Southern Appalachians as a region is that the area is divided into several states, and despite the fact that birds, bears, winds and rivers pay no heed to our political boundaries, coordinating people across those state lines to work together for those natural resources can be a challenge.
Exactly what impact will climate change have on wildlife and what can land managers do about it is one of the biggest questions facing biologists today and one that spans the breadth of fish and wildlife management from the fate of mountain trout to nesting sea turtles. Here in the Southern Appalachians it’s an especially important question because of our incredible diversity of life, including many rare species isolated on our cold, high mountain tops.
In late July, scientists from Appalachian State University published some unfortunate news. The plant Persicaria perfoliata was in North Carolina. Known by the common name mile-a-minute weed, this invasive plant from Asia can grow nearly six inches a day.
Deep Creek flows out of the southern side of Great Smoky Mountains National Park, just outside of Bryson City. A popular weekend spot, entering the park by Deep Creek takes you through a gauntlet of tube rental companies, doing their part to help people enjoy the stream.
The streams of the Toe River Valley, in North Carolina’s Yancey and Mitchell Counties, are home to the endangered Appalachian elktoe mussel. The headwaters of these rivers can be found on the shoulders of Roan Mountain to the north, and Mount Mitchell to the south, each home to an array of rare plants and animals.
There’s a game I do with students, it’s called Common Water. People stand in a circle around a bucket of clean water. The people are a community, the bucket their common source of water. Each person assumes the role of part of the community – a farm, a town center, a housing development. Each person has a sponge and is given 30 seconds to use that sponge to get water from the bucket and put it in a cup at their feet, representing their use of the water. However, each sponge is laced with food coloring, and with each dip, the water gets dirtier, reflecting the fertilizer runoff, erosion, and other pollutants that enter our streams and lakes.
One of my oldest daughter’s first camping trips was to the Cosby section of Great Smoky Mountains National Park. It was a delightful weekend, early in the season before the campground had become crowded. As a gateway to the Smokies, Cosby is a little off the beaten path and the area definitely locks the commercial development of Gatlinburg or Cherokee, offering up a far more subdued experience with low-key groceries and tourist offerings perhaps a little reminiscent of an earlier age in mountain tourism. However life in Cosby may not have been as tranquil at it appeared.
Clawhammer Mountain, in Pisgah National Forest, forms part of the dividing line between the Davidson River Valley to the south and the Mills River Valley to the North. Both of these watersheds host some of the most popular trout fishing spots in western North Carolina, while the Mills River system is a source of drinking water for Hendersonville and Asheville, and home to the endangered Appalachian elktoe, a freshwater mussel.
In much heralded celebrations, Great Smoky Mountains National Park celebrated their 75th anniversary last year and the Blue Ridge Parkway is currently celebrating their 75thanniversary. As important as those are, next year brings an even bigger anniversary – the event that led to the creation of the National Forests in the Eastern U.S.
We sat in the darkness on the edge of the Davidson River in North Carolina’s Transylvania County. Every few minutes someone would turn on a bright headlamp and scan the net that was suspended across the river, searching for a bat that had gotten tangled in the net’s thin threads.
The spotfin chub is an unassuming little fish – growing up to about four inches long, with an unimpressive appearance, save during the breeding season when males turn an iridescent blue on the upper side of their bodies. However, this tiny fish is on the federal endangered species list and one biologists are trying to reestablish in Western North Carolina’s Cheoah River
The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service recently published a demographic and economic analysis of trout fishing in the United States based on 2006 surveys. The result was pretty impressive for North Carolina, especially considering serious trout fishing brings to mind big rivers flowing down from Western mountains.
Mountain sweet pitcher plant is an endangered plant found in Southern Appalachian bogs, one of our rarest natural communities. Bog turtles are North America’s smallest turtle, and are also an imperiled species found in Southern Appalachian bogs.
Aside from both being imperiled; aside from both living in bogs; one thing these two species have in common is they prefer areas with plenty of sunshine.
The Pigeon River, flowing from North Carolina into Tennessee, has long been infamous for its poor water quality. The source of those issues has been a paper mill in the town of Canton, and in recent years the mill has done much to clean up the water they put back in the river.
Each year, late in the spring, I get an invitation from the 6th grade teachers at East Yancey Middle School to join their students at Black Mountain Campground, just downhill from Mount Mitchell.
A decrepit dam on the North Toe River has been removed thanks to their efforts. A railroad trestle that collapsed into the Toe River has been removed thanks to their efforts. Hundreds of school children get to experience rivers first hand thanks to their efforts. Numerous private landowners have improved wildlife habitat on their land thanks to their efforts.
Like most two-year olds, ours is busy discovering the world around her, however one thing quickly grabs her attention – butterflies. Of all the insects, perhaps none is more beloved that butterflies.
Cattail Peak sits in the Black Mountains, just north of the highest mountain in the Eastern United States – Mount Mitchell. The mountains of the Southern Appalachians are the highest in the east and are home to rare natural communities, like grassy balds and spruce-fir forests, that are in turn home to rare species like the rock-gnome lichen, one of two lichens on the federal endangered species list, and the endangered Carolina northern flying squirrel. Highland Brewing has developed a reputation for naming seasonal beers after prominent area mountain peaks, and now this local company is going to deepen its commitment to those mountains.
A history of water pollution decimated fish populations in the stream, a story similar to the Pigeon River. In recent years, both streams have become dramatically cleaner, and the Pigeon has been the focus of an aggressive and successful effort to restore native fish species. Under normal circumstances, the success of the Pigeon River effort would rub-off on Richland Creek, with fish swimming up the creek to colonize good habitat. However, the dam at Lake Junaluska literally stands in the way.
The Deep Horizon oil spill continues to make headlines as oil keeps pouring into the Gulf of Mexico and the slick spreads. In a glimmer of good news, the Fish &Wildlife Service recently reported that the first two oiled birds found in the oil spill, a northern gannet and a brown pelican, were cleaned and released at Pelican Island National Wildlife Refuge, safely on the east coast of Florida.
May 22 is Endangered Species Day. The phrase endangered species often brings to mind animals like panda bears and elephants, but the Southern Appalachians is home to a plethora of fascinating imperiled species.
Yancey County’s Cane River was once home to part of a thriving population of endangered Appalachian elktoe mussels. Recently beset with problems, hopefully through careful stewardship it will once again become a vibrant and beautiful river.
45, 000 acres, 70 square miles, an area nearly 1/10th the size of Great Smoky Mountains National Park. That’s how much land has been protected by Blue Ridge Forever, a coalition of area land trusts now in their final year of a five-year effort to protect 50,000 mountain acres.
I spoke last week about CITES – the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, and how it protects plants and animals at risk from international trade. As part of the CITES process, the 175 signatory countries periodically gather to revisit those protections and see if additional species need protecting.
People are fascinated by the zebra skin. It’s a prop I use when I talk to school groups about endangered species, though when I bring it out sometimes complete strangers come over for a closer look. The skin was confiscated by Fish & Wildlife Service inspectors at the Atlanta airport as it was being unlawfully imported.
We all know endangered species are rare. But there’s rare and then there’s rare. Bunched arrowhead is an endangered plant found only in two counties. In the entire world. Henderson County, North Carolina, and Greenville County, South Carolina.
Recently the president of a local caving club sat in my office, dressed in rugged Carharts, seeming like he was on his way to a cave. He was lamenting a picture he had brought to share. Taken in an East Tennessee cave, it showed a bat with a white tuft on its nose, an indicator of white nose syndrome.
In a mountain-top snow-covered parking area, a team of federal, state, and tribal wildlife biologists grab a ladder and begin marching through the snow and over frozen streams into the forest.
The common name ginseng refers to several species in the Panax genus, including Panax ginseng, found in east Asia, and Panax quinquefolius, often called American ginseng, found here in the United States. Both are used in traditional Chinese medicine.
As a small crowd watched, a hydraulic hammer recently knocked away the first chunk of stone and concrete from Dillsboro Dam. Within weeks, the entire 12-foot high dam will be gone.
Wildlife conservation has faced a string of challenges over the past 150 years. Overhunting led to the extinction of the passenger pigeon and nearly the bison. Hunting seasons and bag limits did an excellent job of addressing over-consumption problems. Habitat destruction became an issue as wetlands were drained and forests cleared – an issue which helped encourage the development of our national wildlife refuge and national forest systems, yet remains an important issue today. Then contaminants fouled our water and air, leading to the Clean Water and Clean Air Acts and the control of pesticides. Today, in addition to those challenges we are faced with new issues like invasive species and climate change.
The Carolina heelsplitter mussel is one of the rarest animals in the country – with shrinking numbers found in only a handful of stream reaches across the Carolina piedmont. A conservation challenge, the mussel has declined as the piedmont, especially the area around Charlotte, has rapidly developed and streams have correspondingly degraded.
In a massive basement in downtown Asheville, millions of sheets of paper are shelved, row upon row, upon row – a place not unlike the warehouse where the Ark of the Covenant is stored in Raiders of the Lost Ark. However, instead of religious artifacts, these shelves contain centuries of weather data ranging from weather reports recorded at frontier forts, to Pacific weather data collected during World War Two to sheets filled out and submitted by farmers across America.
As winter sets in, biologists in North Carolina are busy preparing for the possible arrival of White-Nose Syndrome, or WNS. WNS is a mysterious affliction that is nearly always fatal to bats. It was first documented in a New York cave in 2006 and has since spread north and south, killing hundreds of thousands of bats. The affliction is associated with a newly described fungus which often forms white tufts on the muzzles of infected bats.
We take for granted that each spring trees leaf out, flowers begin to bloom, birds return from their wintering grounds and animals come out of hibernation. What we often don’t think about is the complex interplay between warming temperature, lengthening days, and plant and animal life cycles.
A pair of Harris’ hawks, unlawfully captured in Texas and brought to North Carolina, were recently treated to a plane ride back to their south Texas home, the culmination of nearly two months of effort by law enforcement officers, raptor biologists, and Delta Air Lines.
Money from the federal government’s stimulus package is coming to help wildlife in the Southern Appalachians. $425,000 in grants from the Fish & Wildlife Service will go to local non-profits to improve fish and wildlife habitat on private lands in western North Carolina.
Sadly, we often hear about the abuse of our public streams – from the coal-ash pond failure in East Tennessee, to recent wastewater treatment plant failings across western North Carolina, to high mercury levels in fish in Lake Fontana. These problems degrade water quality, which impairs our ability to enjoy and use the river – from tubing and fishing to revival baptisms. They also hurt the wildlife in a river.
A South Dakota man was recently convicted in federal court for smuggling leopard parts into the United States in a case that exposed illegal hunting in South Africa and the laundering of rare animal parts through Zimbabwe.
Winter is approaching - a season that has become a time of apprehension among wildlife biologists. White nose syndrome, a mysterious affliction responsible for the deaths of more than a million bats, is most lethal during this time, and the collective hibernation of bats means winter presents the greatest opportunity for spreading the malady.
The headwaters of the Pigeon River are just off the Blue Ridge Parkway. The river flows northwest across North Carolina’s Haywood County, crossing into Tennessee before joining the French Broad River. The town of Canton, North Carolina straddles the river and is home to a paper mill that was the historical source of water quality problems that eliminated much of the life in the river for miles downstream - one of the most egregious examples of water pollution in the Southern Appalachians.
The Little Tennessee River between Franklin, North Carolina, and Fontana Reservoir is one of the best examples of a warm, Southern Appalachian river, with a surprising amount of its native fauna intact. Indeed, this stretch is home to three federally-protected animals- the Appalachian elktoe mussel, littlewing pearly mussel, and the spotfin chub, a tiny fish.
As efforts to address climate change build steam, several questions loom about how this phenomenon will affect the Southern Appalachians and how local land managers can respond. That conversation is about to reach a whole new level.
No animal seems to catch the imagination, and flare the passions, of people in the Southern Appalachians like mountain lions.
National Wildlife Refuge week is October 11-17. In the Southern Appalachians, where public lands are likely National Forests or National Park Service lands, it’s important to remember wildlife refuges, administered by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, for they are the only system of federal lands devoted to wildlife.
“This is not the same animal I saw flying around this morning, is it?” asked one teacher, standing knee-deep in the South Toe River, looking at an insect crawling around an ice cube tray.
The animal in question was a dragonfly. Nearly all of us have seen a dragonfly, but what most of us probably don’t know is that large flying insect lived the early part of its life looking entirely different and crawling along the bottom of a stream or pond.
The North Mills River, in North Carolina’s Henderson County, is one of Western North Carolina’s most popular trout rivers. I took some time one Friday to enjoy the river and as I was getting ready to head home, I struck up a conversation with another man in the parking area who was arriving. The man was from Texas. His wife had come to the area on business, and when he saw you could trout fish here, he decided to tag along with her.
Having studied a little photojournalism in college, photography has become a resurgent interest of mine and I was caught by a recent cover of the Mountain Xpress, Asheville’s alternative weekly newspaper. It has a striking image of Great Smoky Mountains National Park, taken by George Masa.
The view from Jane Bald is impressive. On a good day. The day I was there, the fog was socked in, accompanied by a constant strong wind. Although the beautiful views were missing, we were able to watch the wind rush the fog through the neighboring gap as if we were watching a stream squeeze between a pair of rocks. Jane Bald is one of the peaks of Roan Mountain on the North Carolina-Tennessee state line - one of the most biologically important areas in the Southern Appalachians.
For several years biologists were noticing fairly widespread malformations among amphibians - frogs missing legs or having extra legs. There was much speculation about the cause of this disfigurement, including heightened suspicion of pesticides and other chemicals.
Researchers have recently uncovered what may be at least part of the explanation for legless frogs – dragonflies.
The Southern Appalachians is a region known for its salamander diversity, the most famous of which is probably the hellbender, North America’s largest salamander, occasionally reaching lengths greater than 30 inches. However, it’s a very small salamander that has been getting some recent attention.
A little bit of river history was recently made in western North Carolina as a decrepit dam was removed from the North Toe River in Mitchell County.
I’ve often spoken of white nose syndrome, the mysterious ailment killing thousands of bats in the northeast which is working its way southward. One of the myriad questions surrounding this affliction is what the death of thousands of bats means for the greater natural community, including human health, considering the volume of insects bats consume and that an impact on one part of a community can reverberate throughout, possibly with serious unforeseen consequences.
The Cradle of Forestry in America, in North Carolina’s Transylvania County, was the site of the nation’s first forestry school and you can still visit the one-room school house the students used.
It’s appropriate then, that beside this schoolhouse is planted a young chestnut tree. The American chestnut was once the most abundant tree in Eastern hardwood forests, and was functionally eliminated by an Asian fungus, the chestnut blight. The tree beside the schoolhouse isn’t a pure American chestnut, but a hybrid – 15/16ths American chestnut, and 1/16th Chinese chestnut, which affords it resistance to the blight. There’s hope this hybrid is the key to returning the chestnut to Eastern forests.
Summertime is upon us. Grab the sunscreen, grab the fishing pole, grab the digital camera. As part of an ongoing and widespread effort to encourage people to spend more time outside, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service invites you to submit your summer photos of friends and family enjoying the outdoors to become part of a photomosaic of nearly 10,000 images.
It’s the telephone call a biologist never wants to get – the chemical spill, the fish kill, the accident that makes you stop everything else. The most recent was a train wreck along the North Toe River in Mitchell County. Fortunately no one was hurt.
The chucky madtom is one of Southern Appalachia’s rarest fish, found only from a single stream in a single county in Eastern Tennessee. Only 14 specimens of the fish have ever been documented, the last sighting in 2004. This comes despite regular, and sometimes exhaustive, searches by biologists.
If anyone has first hand experience with a reptile, it’s probably a box turtle, the state reptile of North Carolina. While box turtles may grace numerous classrooms or home terrariums, the truth is scientists don’t know a lot about the status of box turtle populations and fear they may be declining.
The death of hemlock trees from the hemlock woolly adelgid is an increasingly widespread and well-known phenomena, but what remains a mystery is exactly how this will impact the future of Southern Appalachian forests.
The children on our street often congregate in the yard with the best play set, but recently the bright yellow slide in the yard was ruled off limits. Not because it isn’t safe, rather a chickadee made a nest in a birch stump next to the base of the slide.
White nose syndrome, an affliction of unknown origin that is fatal to bats, has been confirmed in two Virginia counties, the first cases in the Southern Appalachians. First documented in New York in 2006, WNS has killed tens of thousands of bats as it spread north and south.
The Rafinesque's big-eared bat is the subject of concern for biologists. State biologists in North Carolina are looking at innovative ways to provide shelter for them.
The Eastern small-footed bat is one of the smallest in the U.S., how is this uncommon bat doing in Western North Carolina?
Frogs are suffering around the globe and this special days seeks to bring attention to their plight.
This lichen is one of two on the federal endangered species list. Learn more about it and the threats it faces.
White nose syndrome, a mysterious afflication fatal to bats, is spreading north and south killing bats along the way.
This year, the peregrine falcon celebrates ten years off the endangered species list, but it still needs help to continue its recovery
Wind turbines are known for their impacts to birds, less so for impacts to bats. However, some of the bats killed by wind turbines never even touch the blades.
This common insect, builder of the round, paper nests we see in trees, has a fascinating annual life cycle.
The McElrath family's property sits at the headwaters of the Mills River, surrounded by national forest. Now that land has been protected under a conservation easement, protecting the river and the forest.
The drought that continues to strike much of the Southern Appalachians complicates work to restore the biodiversity of the Pigeon River.
East Tennessee's Rocky fork Track, one of the region's most significant pieces of unprotected land, has indeed been protected.
Tearthumb is a relatively common plant in wetland areas, but one you want to avoid if possible.
In the face of drought across much of the Southeastern United States, this report by the non-profit American Rivers points out ways communities can save water on a large scale without having to turn to building new large-scale reservoirs to meet water demand.
Research from the University of Pittsburgh demonstrates that just because a pesticide may not kill a frog directly, doesn't mean it doesn't have a major impact.
Biologists discovered that the rare Carolina northern flying squirrel wasn't crossing the Cherola Skyway, a 36-mile road in Western North Carolina and Eastern Tennessee, leading to an innovative solution.
Daddy longlegs are one of our most common animals, and one that children key in on at an early age. Learn more about this fascinating arachnid.
Southern Appalachian bogs are one of the rarest habitats in the United States, and key to their protection is protecting the flow of water upon which they depend.
Bog turtles are but one species of turtles able to spend long amounts of time underwater. The key to that ability is their ability to breathe using their cloaca.
Students from Dr. Scott Pearson's GIS class at Mars Hill College have teamed up with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service to help conserve a rare plant by creating GIS databases showing biologists where the plants are and providing them with a wealth of information about each population.
What is the story behind these top-level carnivores, the largest turtle in the Southern Appalachians
One of the first animals a child has intimate contact with is the ladybug. Learn more about these little insects.
An agreement between a host of partners will help move migratory fish llike American shad and AMerican eels up and down the Santee River basin and across the Carolinas.
Recognizing that a developing landscape could permanently degrade or even destroy some of the most important natural areas and working lands in the region, ten land conservancies working across Western North Carolina banded together to form the Blue Ridge Forever coalition, identifying 28 of the most important unprotected areas where they’ll concentrate their land protection efforts.
The plight of American fish is growing more and more grave, according to a recently released report from the American Fisheries Socieity, the nation's premier organization of fisheries biologists
Kids In the Creek program takes 8th graders on a search for aquatic insects, fish, and an understanding of Southern Appalachian streams, and compels one 8th grade teacher to start kissing fish.
A new program in Western North Carolina, Muddy Sneakers, is an effort to get kids outside throughout the school year to learn science, language arts, math and other subject by studying the natural world
A team of botanists from across the Southern Appalachians join in an effort to document spreading avens, a rare plant found on some of the roughest terrain in the region.
To mark Endangered Species Day this year, biologists with the Asheville Field Office joined students from Mountain Heritage High School on the Toe River in a search for the endangered Appalachian elktoe.
A local watershed group in the Toe River Valley is working to create a river trail that will give boaters easy access to rivers of the Toe River Valley in North Carolina's Yancy and Mitchell Counties.
State, federal, tribal, and private biologists have all come together in an effort to improve the plight of the rare sicklefin redhorse fish, hopefully keeping it from being listed under the Endangered Species Act.
A recent search along the Little Tennessee river for the threatened Virginia spiraea plant turned up a happy discovery.
Recent incidents - one on the Cane River in Yancey County, the other on the Davidson River in Transylvania County, highlight the fragility of our water quality.
There's a growing conern in America that children are spending less and less time outdoors, and that this will have a negative impact, both on their health and well-being, and on how they view and value the natural world on which we all depend.
Roan Mountian, on the North Carolina-Tennessee border, is home to a concentration of imperiled plants and animals and a conglomeration of every high elevation natural community found in the Southern Appalachians. However, some of those communities are threatened by the growth of woody vegetation, something a herd of goats might help change.
The Cane and North Toe Rivers, each in the Toe River Valley of Western North Carolina, are both saddled with decrepit dams which are slated for removal.
As the emerald ash borer, an exotic invasive insect that kills native ash trees, spreads around the Great Lakes, land managers in the Southern Appalachians take steps to safeguard their forests.