Southern Appalachian Creature Feature

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.