Great Smoky Mountains National Park Supervisory Fisheries Biologist Steve Moore was recently recognized with two national awards for his leadership in native trout stream restoration at the Smokies and in national parks across the nation. Moore recently received the Aldo Starker Leopold Medal by the Wild Trout Symposium and the Trout Unlimited Trout Conservation Professional Award.
Both awards recognized Moore’s over 25 years of achievement in restoring populations of native brook trout to streams in the Smokies, and assisting with other projects including the restoration of bull trout to Crater Lake National Park (Ore.) and to North Cascade National Park (Wash.) and restoring Bonneville cutthroat trout to Great Basin National Park (Nev.). Throughout the country, a combination of habitat degradation and extensive stocking of non-native fish species, have taken a heavy toll on numerous species of native trout, which typically require cold, clear, pristine water for survival. In many cases streams that may have been degraded by siltation or pollution in past years have been cleaned up, but the native trout still need a helping hand to return.
According to Deputy Park Superintendent, Kevin FitzGerald, “One of the core missions of national parks is to preserve natural biodiversity which sometimes means restoring native plant and animal species which have been displaced from their historic homes by earlier human impacts. “
“In our case, the brook trout was the only native species of trout in the Smokies, but they were crowded out of all but the most isolated high-elevation streams when – with the best of intentions – logging companies and early park managers released rainbow and later brown trout into Park streams in the early 20th Century.”
In the Smokies the brookies that remain in the headwaters face a double threat. They are squeezed between heavy competition from rainbows and browns downstream, and airborne acid deposition upstream that has made the water too acidic to support trout. The key to preserving the Appalachian brook trout is to remove the non-native trout from selected segments of lower-elevation streams and then to assist the brookies in moving downstream into less acidic waters.
To be suitable for restoration, a stream segment must have a record of a pure brook trout population in the past and a waterfall or other barrier at the lower end that prevents non-native fish from returning back upstream. Restoration of each segment involves removal of the non-natives through either electro-shocking and/or chemicals. Over the last 24 years of the Park’s Brook Trout Restoration Program Park biologists, assisted by a small army of state fishery managers and volunteers from Trout Unlimited, have restored a total of 24.1 miles of stream to brook trout habitat.
Restoring each segment involves close coordination of 20 or more biologists and volunteers who string nets, electro-shock and relocate the non-natives, add and monitor the chemicals used and add neutralizing agents at the lower end of the segment being restored.
“Stream restoration is such a complex and labor-intensive process that the Park could never even attempt it without the financial support and/or hands-on assistance of all the neighboring entities such as Trout Unlimited, Tennessee Brookies, Friends of the Smokies, and the Tennessee and North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commissions.” FitzGerald said. “Steve has become nationally-recognized master of planning these restoration projects and brokering together a huge number of partners to get them done. We welcome this opportunity to acknowledge this well deserved recognition of Steve and show our appreciation to all the partners that he has brought into the mix over the years.”
Jeff
HikingintheSmokys.com
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Related Videos :below I show related videos and not so related to this article.
© Great Smoky Mountains Association 2010.
The trees with delicate, tiny needles that you walk among on almost every trail in the Great Smoky Mountains, that you see on almost every hillside Hemlock trees!
But the quintessential Smokies tree is being killed by a non-native insect thats no bigger than the dot at the end of this sentence. Saving the trees is a complex problem, involves a lot of sweat and effort, and some interesting biology too.
Ive put together a 3-part film to explain what the problem is, and whats being done to save the trees.
Feel free to embed or link to our videos on your website or blog as long as you include this copyright notice: "© GSMA 2010. All rights reserved. " and a link to our website: www.smokiesinformation.org.
Summer is mating season for bears. A male, also known as a boar, will seek out a sow without cubs. After mating, the two will separate and perhaps never interact again. Strangely, the newly formed embryo will not attach to the sow's uterus after conception. Instead, sows experience what is known as delayed implantation. The embryo becomes dormant until late fall. If the sow is able to find enough food to put on a healthy fat layer for the winter, then one, two, or up to 6 embryos will affix themselves to the placenta and begin to grow. The sow will give birth to her cubs during her winter sleep. The cubs are so small when born that the sow may not even wake up during birth.
At birth, in January or February, a cub may weigh but half a pound. It will find its way to the mother's nipple, and begin suckling. Bear milk is up to 30% fat. Compare that to a cow's milk that is only 3% fat. Feeding on this rich milk, the cub will gain 5 to 10 pounds in the next few months. In April or May, the sow will emerge from her den with her new cubs.
Bears prefer to den high in trees where large cavities are available. The average height of a den in the Smokies is 80 feet. The first experience a cub has in the outside world can be descending an 80 foot tree. Bears are great climbers. But bears can also den on the ground. These dens are often in thickets of briers, which offer some protection from other animals.
Mother and cubs will forage together for a year and a half. They are inseparable during this time. But eventually, the desire to mate again will come to the sow. She must get rid of her yearlings. The sow has taught her yearlings to climb trees whenever danger threatens. She will bark or huff at them and up the nearest tree they will go. She might run off to draw the danger away, so the yearlings have learned to wait in the tree until she returns. The sow uses this training to rid herself of her offspring. She will send them up a tree and then leave, never to return.
After hours or maybe even a day, the yearlings will realize they have been abandoned, climb down from the tree, and begin a life on their own. Most yearlings will not survive the next year. Those that do survive will mature at age 3 and could live into their teens or early twenties. The oldest known bear in the Smokies was a sow that lived 26 years.
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