Southern Appalachian Creature Feature

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.