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?

North Carolina governor Pat McCrory recently signed into law the Outdoor Heritage Act.