Southern Appalachian Creature Feature

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.