Part 3 Guide and Adviser 98

Topical Reference 101

Going to the Great Smokies 101

Park Map 102

Visitor Centers 104

The Smokies by Car 107

Wildflowers and Fall Colors 110

Activities 112

Hiking and Backpacking 114

Accommodations 118

For Your Safety 120

Nearby Attractions 122

Books to Read 125

Index 126

1 Welcome to the Great Smokies

[Illustration: _A rustic Cades Cove cabin preserves the spirit of

pioneer life and times._]

[Illustration: _Here in the East's wettest corner, winter snows

release moisture slowly into the ground until spring thaw swells

streams to rush downslope. The ultimate destination? The Gulf of

Mexico._]

The Appalachians at Their Best

At first glimpse there appear to be two Smokies: the mountains' wild

nature, and the folk life. The mind calls up both the sweeping mountain

vistas whose peaks succeed peaks to the far horizon and the rustic

cabins and barns set off with the split rail fences of 19th-century

mountain life. The mountains are everywhere, punctuated by restored

settlements, by Cades Cove, Mingus Mill, Cataloochee, and Little

Greenbrier. But this is not the full story for there are many, many

Great Smokies, a double fistful of which may be just for you. There are

as many Great Smokies as there are people who come here intent on

discovering their secrets: the folklorist's and amateur historian's

Smokies; the trout angler's Smokies; the Smokies of the backpacker,

day-tripper, and trail walker; the botanist's, ecologist's, and birder's

Smokies; and the automobile tourist's Smokies. Take your pick.

You can walk into the Smokies, into the heart of the wilderness. You can

drive through the Smokies, through the jewels in the crown of the

Appalachian highlands. You can enter them through North Carolina or

through Tennessee. But you can also enter them through any strong

interest _you_ may have, for there are as many Smokies as there are ways

you can see them. And one good way to see them is through the eyes of a

native son whose love for these mountains is exceeded only by his love

for people. Such is Glenn Cardwell.

Glenn Cardwell took his aging mother and father down to the Noah "Bud"

Ogle cabin just after the National Park Service finished restoring it.

Glenn works for the park and would conduct nature walks at the cabin, so

he wanted to see what his folks would say. They used to live nearby and

his mother's Aunt Cindy and her husband, Noah, built the cabin just off

Cherokee Orchard Road out of Gatlinburg.

"Well I'll tell you," Glenn said, "my mother got to reminiscing not one

step off the parking lot and stopped at every rock and spot in the yard

and told a tale. It must've taken the better part of an hour just to get

her through the yard and down to the porch."

Glenn's mother took one look at the porch and said, "They put the step

[a big flat rock] in the wrong place." And so the restoration team had

... but it was another rock that bothered Mrs. Cardwell most.

Walking back to the car she stopped dead in her tracks and said

despairingly, "What have they _done_ to Cindy's rock?"

Glenn had no idea what she meant although he could see the road cut

close to a big boulder. The road had been relocated but Glenn recalled

nothing unusual about the rock.

His mother, still staring, repeated her question. Glenn's father

shrugged, "Looks to me like somebody blowed hell out of it."

"I still couldn't figure out what was bothering my mother," Glenn said.

But now, in the 1980s, he will tell you that everyone in the Smokies had

scaffolds in their yards back in Aunt Cindy's day for drying fruits and

vegetables for winter storage. Everyone, that is, but Aunt Cindy. She

used the big boulder across from their cabin, or what used to be the

flat part of it. Many's the time Glenn's mother, as a little girl,

helped Aunt Cindy spread produce to sun dry on the rock.

Glenn Cardwell is an affable walking encyclopedia of Smokies life at the

time the Smokies changed from a piece of Tennessee and North Carolina

real estate into our second national park in the East. Stories such as

Glenn's--and there are many--supply a compelling human resonance to this

wilderness land. Glenn's enthusiasm is a bit unusual, because his father

was bought out _twice_ by the Federal government as lands were being

acquired for the park. And each buy-out meant an unplanned relocation

for the family, moving and building anew.

"I think if my mother hadn't had me on the way at the time of the first

buy-out," Glenn said, "my father would have pulled up stakes and gone

back to Cumberland, Virginia, like many, many of our other relatives

did." But the Cardwells stayed on near the park and Glenn embodies a

transition, bridging new and old ways of doing and seeing things here.

His father was bitter at first, but when he visited the Noah "Bud" Ogle

Cabin years later he admitted he was glad the park had come along so

that some things remained unchanged. It was nice, he said, that he and

others could still see the land as it had been.

The Great Smokies represented a new direction in national park policy in

the 1920s. The eighteen national parks then in existence in the West had

been created from lands already owned by the Federal government. The

Smokies lands authorized for park purchase beginning in 1926 were all in

private ownership in more than 6,600 tracts. The lion's share was owned

by eighteen timber and pulpwood companies, but 1,200 other tracts were

farms. Worse, there were also more than 5,000 lots and summer homes.

Many of these had been won in promotion schemes and their owners had

never bothered to pay taxes on them. This created an awesome land

acquisition headache.

The Federal government would not purchase land for national parks in

those days, so in 1927 the Tennessee and North Carolina legislatures

each provided for appropriation of $2 million to purchase the land.

Already, $1 million had been pledged. The legislation also created State

Park Commissions in each state to handle the buying. The John D.

Rockefeller family supplemented the fund drive with a $5 million

donation. This was considered one of the biggest and most important

accomplishments of the entire national park movement. The two states

eventually purchased the needed lands and donated them to the Federal

government.

Ten years of dogged, full-scale activity and several more years of tying

up loose ends were required to get the acquisition job done. Despite

this tremendous impact of human land use in the Smokies, however, about

forty percent of the park's 209,000 hectares (517,000 acres) constitutes

the East's most extensive virgin forest. Forest recovery is now well

underway throughout the park despite the former blight left by logging

and subsequent forest fires, and landslides, and other forms of erosion.

At one time no sharp edge separated two aspects of nature in the Great

Smokies: man and the wilderness. Cherokee Indians lived here in ways

ironically similar to those of the whites who would soon displace them.

They cultivated crops, hunted, believed in one god, practiced a

democratic form of government, and lived not in teepees but in

mud-and-log structures. "The place of blue smoke," _Shaconage_, they

called this mountain hunting ground. And here amidst the haze lived also

the spirit of their people; it, too, could not be divorced from the land

itself. Treaty after treaty saw the Cherokees lose more and more

homeland, up to and finally including the Smokies. In one of the great

human tragedies that blots American history they were forcibly removed

westward, "relocated" to Oklahoma via the "Trail of Tears." One fourth

of the people died along the way. A few Cherokees had resisted removal,

staying behind in small groups and hiding out in the mountains. Troops

could not relocate them because they couldn't _locate_ them. Later the

Cherokees were allowed to return and reclaim the borders of their old

homeland. They live there today on the Cherokee Reservation.

[Illustration: _A contented cow lends realism to the reconstructed

Pioneer Farmstead, next to Oconaluftee Visitor Center._]

[Illustration: _Mt. LeConte is the park's third highest peak,

following Mt. Guyot and Clingmans Dome, the highest. Smokies rocks

are among the continent's oldest sediments. The ranges have survived

200 million years of erosion. By contrast, the Sierra Nevada is

thought to be only 1 million years old._]

[Illustration: _First things first! A rain-geared backpacker makes

sure her feet are protected against blisters. The park offers more

than 1,300 kilometers (800 miles) of trails, including 110

kilometers (70 miles) of the Appalachian Trail that stretches from

Maine to Georgia._]

It is difficult now to appreciate the pressure once exerted on the

Appalachian highlands by human settlement. Back when land meant

livelihood to a nation of agrarian people, the gradual pressure from the

eastern coast, across the Piedmont, reached the Appalachian chain. The

shortage of arable lands forced people into and finally onto the

mountains in search of a plot of ground that would produce a livelihood.

And so settlement came to the Great Smokies, gradually working its way

up the mountainsides to the limits of cultivation. Grazing was

eventually pushed beyond those limits all the way up the mountain to the

balds. Combined overgrazing, overfishing, destructive logging practices,

and overhunting would soon turn dense wilderness into a ravaged

landscape. The National Park was authorized in 1926, established for

protection in 1930, and established for development in 1934. And now,

about 50 years later, wilderness is again in ascendancy, as field

naturalist Napier Shelton amply testifies as he takes you exploring in

Part Two of this handbook.

The wilderness richness here is both astounding and close at hand.

Richness? There are more species of salamanders here--22--than in any

other part of the world. In the lush density of the Smokies forests

there are more tree species than in all of Northern Europe. It is

thought that this sheer density of forest cover and its attendant

transpiration help account for the "misty" character for which the Great

Smoky Mountains are named.

This forest richness continues to unfold for present-day biologists, as

the recent discovery of the paper birch in the Smokies attests. It had

long been held that this northern species did not occur in Tennessee.

Its range generally swings southward into New Jersey and then simply

jumps along the Appalachians, appearing here and there as elevation and

other conditions simulate northerly climes.

Peter White, plant ecologist with the National Park Service's Uplands

Biological Field Research Laboratory in the Smokies, discovered several

of the trees one day when he went out to verify a paper birch sighted by

three North Carolina graduate students two years before. "It was located

on a manway or unmaintained trail," White said, "right on the trail, one

of the steepest in the park. So if you knew what you were looking for

there was no missing it. Actually what we have here in the Smokies is

called the mountain paper birch, which may or may not be a different

species than the classic white birch which would be called the true or

typical paper birch."

White is fascinated with unusual plant occurrences. A major passion of

his here in the Smokies is to track down the mystery of the circumpolar

twinflower, _Linnaea_, collected from "the mountains of Sevier County in

Tennessee" by amateur botanist Albert Ruth in 1891. This is the only

report of the plant south of certain bogs in West Virginia, and White

hopes to verify it.

"Ruth misidentified this _Linnaea_ as partridgeberry and it wasn't known

about until 1934, when it came to the University of Tennessee with the

Ruth Collection from Texas," White said. "Jack Sharp at the university

recognized its true identity and its significance."

The Ruth Collection came to Tennessee because the university's plant

herbarium was destroyed by fire in the 1920s and the university sought

to build it up again. The twinflower was discovered by the great

botanist Carl Linnaeus in Finland and named for him by a friend. It

occurs from Eurasia to North America as a northern species, hence the

"circumpolar" description.

"There are pluses and minuses to believing the plant came from here,"

White explained. "Ruth was a careful field botanist with a good eye, and

many plants are named for him. He collected many species for the first

time. But we also know from his collections that some of his labels are

vague."

White's quest for the elusive twinflower growing far south of its normal

range symbolizes an aspect of the Smokies. The park has been designated

an International Biosphere Reserve. As one writer put it: All the world

of ecology comes to the Great Smokies ... Scientists and students come

to observe the richness and density of life forms; the misplaced

species; the dramatic impacts of catastrophic landslides and fire scars;

and the unknowns, those tantalizing areas of knowledge still withholding

their secrets despite careful scrutiny. What really happened here during

the glacial periods? Where were the trees then? How much forest burning

did Cherokees use for game and vegetation management purposes before

Europeans came? Speculations aside, what is the true story behind grassy

balds? What are the seasonal migration patterns of the juncos that stay

in the park year-round? These remain questions stirring the expert and

amateur alike to earnest inquiry.

[Illustration: _Abundant cascades and inviting waterfalls greet you

in the Smokies. Their sprays often water luxuriant mosses and make

ideal habitat for the Smokies' surprising number of salamanders and

aquatic insects._]

[Illustration: _Don't let the glorious mountain vistas distract you

from the beauty at your feet. The park boasts more than 2,000

species of mushrooms. They are conspicuous because abundant moisture

may encourage them to fruit several times a year._]

Perhaps you may come to make one of these questions your own. Nature, it

turns out, is an unfolding process. It is a continuous coping, albeit

gradual, with change, so that our knowledge always remains limited and

there is ever much more to learn. If you have questions, do feel free to

ask them. Ask them of a ranger, a naturalist, or the people behind the

counters at the visitor centers. But the more closely you observe the

nature of things here in the Smokies, the more likely your questions

will be to draw a blank. Don't be disappointed by this. Be encouraged:

your question without an answer, should you pursue it, might hold the

key to understanding some facet of the natural world tomorrow. But you

will have to look at the Smokies, really look with honest and inquiring

eyes, to stump the likes of Glenn Cardwell and Peter White or any number

of other people you might meet here in the park.

All questions aside, however, one thing is certain: millions have come

here in pursuit of recreation and gone away fully satisfied, to return

again and again. Great Smoky Mountains National Park is a great place to

_do_ things, things we describe in Part Three of this handbook, your

"Guide and Adviser." May _you_ return again and again.

2 The Nature of Things In the Highlands

[Illustration: _Common wood sorrel blooms in forest shade in spring

and summer, depending an elevation. One flowering shrub, the witch

hazel, blooms in fall and early winter._]

[Illustration: _For sheer numbers and diversity of trees and

flowering plants, the park is a botanical showplace. Its varied

elevations telescope together nearly all forest types found from

Maine to Georgia. Hiker and motorist alike may see wildflowers from

March through October._]

A One-day Walk to Maine

Every spring a number of enterprising people set out to walk more than

3,000 kilometers (2,000 miles) on the Appalachian Trail from Georgia to

Maine. Those who finish typically arrive some four months later. You can

experience nearly the same thing--in terms of the natural history and

particularly forest cover--in a single day by hiking from the lowlands

to the crest of the Smokies. Because of the climatic change accompanying

this gain in altitude, as much as 1,500 meters (5,000 feet), such a walk

can take you, as it were, through the oak and pine forests of northern

Georgia, the oak-hickory forests of central Virginia, the northern

hardwoods of Massachusetts, and into the spruce-fir forests of Maine and

Canada. And along the way you get many glimpses of the natural processes

that shape and control the national park's marvelous assemblage of life.

If you're not quite ready for such a long, hard climb, why not join me

for an armchair ascent of the mountains?

It's early on a summer morning and the sky is clear, but knowing the

frequency of rain in the Smokies, we tuck ponchos into our packs. As our

boots crunch pleasantly on the gravel of an old mountain road, we listen

to the neighboring stream and look at the forested hollow it drains.

Just a few decades ago farm children played in the stream, and

cornfields bordered the road. Now we can enjoy the stream in the shade

of yellow-poplar trees that now stand thick and straight where the grain

once did.

Around a bend the stream gradient steepens and so does the road. We are

still in young forest; here it grows where cattle formerly grazed or

lumbermen felled its giant ancestors. For some time we labor upwards,

the road becoming a trail and a few big trees appearing along the

tumbling creek. Then, rather suddenly, there is a striking difference in

the environment. We have crossed the line into primeval forest, into

territory where the axman has not been and most of the trees are big.

This is Great Smokies virgin cove forest, a type unrivaled in the

northern hemisphere for combined variety and size of trees. Here it is

cool, shady, and moist. The tree trunks shoot high above into the

canopy, which intercepts most of the sunlight and seems to enclose us in

a private world. The ground around us is covered with the greenery of

small plants. We hear bird songs but cannot see the singers.

The peace and grandeur of the forest are interrupted by a slight

movement off to our right. In the leaves beneath a large, rotting log a

tiny shrew restlessly sniffs with its long nose. It moves in short

thrusts through the dead leaves, searching with a fierce intensity for

worms, crickets, or any animal small enough to overcome. Impelled by

hunger, this normally nocturnal animal has been emboldened by the

shadiness to venture into the cove forest's subdued daylight. The shrew

is just one infinitesimal part of the great forest, in which thousands

of living things seek the energy and nutrients needed for survival. The

shrew hunts, as it were, a fragment of the sun's energy, transmitted

through plants and then through the small plant-eating creatures that it

preys upon.

Crossing a log bridge below a waterfall, we see fish darting under

boulders. Spray from the falls drifts over us and onto the dark thickets

of rhododendron crowding the stream banks. We try to keep the cool water

in our minds as we start up the long switchbacks ascending the valley's

south-facing slope. Trees of the cove forest, buckeye, hemlock, sugar

maple, and their many associates, gradually become scarcer, and oaks and

hickories become the dominant trees. Halfway up the slope we have

climbed from coolness into warmth. Here in the more open oak forest, the

sun beams down through the foliage, heating the ground and air.

A few gulps from the canteen and we can face the last switchbacks up the

slope and onto a sunstruck, rocky ridge. The sun has real authority

here. Winding more gradually upward along this ridge, the trail now

takes us beneath pines, trees that are adapted to such hot, dry

situations. If it weren't for the trail, we would have a tough time

making our way through the thickets of mountain-laurel spread beneath

the scattered pines. A towhee, lover of such thickets, calls its name as

we pass. In one stretch we go through a brown patch of dead pines. After

several mild winters, southern pine beetles have multiplied and feasted

here. If the next winter is not cold enough to kill most of the beetle

larvae, the patch of dead pines may increase greatly in size.

The trail now slants off onto the north side of the ridge. Right away

the air is somewhat cooler here where part of the day the ridgetop

shields it from the sun. The pines quickly disappear, and beeches,

yellow birches, maples, and buckeyes form the forest. You New Englanders

should now feel quite at home, among these tree species that accompany

us all the way across the mountain's north and east flank. Then, as we

approach the 1,500-meter (5,000-foot) level, the dark spires of

scattered spruces begin to appear, signaling the nearness of the

Smokies' crowning forest.

But before we make the final ascent, let's take a short detour to a

nearby knob, which promises a spectacular view, a welcome visual release

after being shut in so long by foliage. Going up the side of the knob,

we quickly leave the forest and begin tunneling through dense thickets

of rhododendron and mountain-laurel. Trees don't grow here at all. On

top, the shrubs become smaller and we can look out over them. Perched on

the end of a spur from the side of a giant valley, we look up to high

ridges on both sides and down to a stream far below. Is it our

imagination, or do we really hear that stream whispering to us of the

humid, secret world way down there under the big trees? For many minutes

we are lost in contemplation of the Smokies' green-blue spaces.

The crack of thunder suddenly wakens us from our reverie. A bank of

clouds, dark underneath and contorted with churning air, is rolling over

the ridges and into the head of the valley. The clouds shoot lightning

toward the slopes below. Hypnotized by the spectacle we remain rooted to

our rocks until the first drops fall, then we pull on our ponchos,

determined to greet the storm. Soon the valley view is blotted out by

boiling clouds. We and a circle of shrubs, both whipped by rain and

wind, are all that exist in the world. Our foolhardiness on this exposed

knob is soon revealed as lightning flashes so near that its crackling

sound is almost instantaneous. We hurry down the trail, now a small

torrent where it tunnels through the rhododendrons, and in a few minutes

we reach safer ground. We eat our lunch under sheltering hemlocks. When

we sense the end of the storm, we head toward our day's goal, the top of

the Smokies. The deciduous forest rapidly turns into a coniferous one,

the beech, birch, maple, buckeye, and others giving way to a nearly

solid stand of spruce and fir. This is an enchanted forest. Carpets of

mosses and ferns, struggling, as it were, for growing space, make

delicate patterns on the forest floor. Limber-stemmed shrubs lift round

or toothed leaves to the pale, post-storm light filtering through the

thick evergreen foliage of the trees above. Out of the stillness, like

the voice of some tiny fairy, comes the tinkling medley of a winter

wren. We stop and listen. We watch a drop of water fall from the tip of

a fern. We feel the coolness, a coolness born of altitude. We have

reached Maine right here in the Smokies.

A short distance beyond, the trail breaks out onto the top of a cliff,

opening to us the whole breadth of the mountains. This is our final

reward; and as we sit here we see, without knowing it, a summary of our

day's experience. We see landslide scars on the mountainside that

probably came during a storm like the one we just experienced, when the

earth, heavy with water and lying thinly over the smooth rock beneath,

could no longer hang on and slipped in a crashing avalanche down the

slope; like the pine beetle, landslides are one of the many natural

forces that challenge the forest's powers of recuperation. Chimney

swifts pick insects from the air and we hear the chatter of a red

squirrel interrupted in its hunt for cones. Like the shrew, each in its

own special way is busy gaining the fuel to stay alive. Each, through

its interaction with plants and animals, affects the total fabric of

Smokies life. Far below, the trees of a cove forest march up a stream

valley; on the slopes above them spreads a mantle of oaks. A narrow

ridge far down and off to the right bears the dark green of pines.

Nearer, we see the ragged lower edge of the spruce-fir forest, where it

fingers into the northern hardwoods below it. But we sense an overall

unity because each kind of forest merges into the next, creating an

unbroken mantle that lies over all the ridges as far as the eye can see.

There is no true alpine tundra in the Smokies, such as we might find

atop certain mountains in New York and New England and atop many

mountains in the West. But alpine experiences aplenty await us here for

the climbing. They can be had on ridges, peaks, and, even pinnacles,

from atop which we gaze out over a forested sea of peaks. It is a rare

reminder of the mantle of forest that once lay unbroken over the eastern

United States. It is often said that when Europeans first encountered

America, a squirrel could walk from the Atlantic Ocean to the

Mississippi without touching the ground!

Clouds drift over the mountain waves. Like the clouds of many

yesterdays, they have dropped their burden of excess moisture on the

forests, maintaining the wetness that encourages the lush plant growth

of the Smokies. Then, through a break in the clouds, the sun finally

shines, sending renewed charges of energy into the forest and ultimately

through all the life of the forest. Much of the pattern of forest types

is determined by the way the sun's rays strike the mountain slopes.

Through changes in its daily duration and height in the sky the sun

makes the seasons. Through its powers to evaporate ocean water and

provide the energy that moves air, it can even be said to bring the rain

itself.

Georgia to Maine, Straight Up

[Illustration: Mountain vista]

A hike from Cades Cove to Clingmans Dome simulates walking from North

Georgia to Maine. You will begin in Cades Cove amidst oak and pine

forests which also grow in northern Georgia. Your walk will end atop

Clingmans Dome in spruce-fir forests characteristic of Maine and

Canada. In between you will hike beneath the canopies of

oak-hickory-red maple forests that characterize Virginia, and the

northern hardwoods of Massachusetts. The reason for this localized

insight into the whole of the eastern United States forest types is

the vertical rise of the Great Smoky Mountains. The Smokies' highest

peaks stand 1,500 meters (5,000 feet) above its lowlands.

The axiom is this: here in the Smokies, elevation gain simulates a

shift to more northerly latitudes. Of course, this is a

generalization. On an actual hike from Cades Cove to Clingmans Dome

you would have to detour a lot to take in all the variety of eastern

U.S. forest types. But all except true alpine tundra are here,

although not laid out in a straight line.

In rough attempts to measure the Smokies' _local_ climates, the rule

of thumb is that spring advances up the mountains. At lower

elevations, for example, spring beauty blooms by early March. At 1,500

meters (5,000 feet) elevation, however, it may still be in full bloom

two to three months later.

Remarkably, the Smokies provide a plant laboratory encompassing most

of the eastern U.S. major forest vegetation types. This, and the fact

that virgin forests are rare in the East, make it no wonder that the

Great Smoky Mountains National Park has been designated an

International Biosphere Reserve.

This international recognition of and commitment to preserving the

Smokies underscores the park's wealth of natural history.

You need not be an expert to observe this. Sharp eyes and curiosity

will in themselves unfold great portions of this natural history lore

for you to ponder.

[Illustration: In the first low reaches of your one-day trip from

Georgia to Maine here in the Smokies, crossvine, grapevine, or

lady's-slipper (photo) may be blooming. These flowers, like the

Virginia, pitch, and shortleaf pines, cling to the warmest local

climates. They also follow the driest slopes and ridges only part

way up the mountains. As you gain elevation you quickly leave these

species behind.]

[Illustration: The contrast between your lowlands trailhead and the

1,800-meter (6,000-foot) summit is amazing. Even the chickadees

change en route. The Carolina species holds forth down here in the

cove, but gives way to the black-capped chickadee somewhere around

1,500 meters (5,000 feet). The fence lizard is a dry, pine woods

creature. Like the Carolina Chickadee, it generally avoids higher

elevations.]

[Illustration: Each animal and plant drops out at a different limit

as you gain altitude, but more than half of your journey will be

through deciduous forest, of the cove hardwood type or oak woodland.

Smokies forests are rich: there are more tree species here than in

all of Northern Europe.]

[Illustration: As you travel the lower forests you will probably

hear the songs of the ovenbird, wood thrush, and pileated

woodpecker, birds you would hear in mature timber throughout the

eastern United States. The gray squirrel and the box turtle, both

familiar creatures, will be occasional trailside companions in these

broad-leaved woodlands.]

[Illustration: The basswood tree is considered an "indicator" of the

cove hardwood forest type. The magnolias, with their oversize

leaves, catch the eye of most people traveling south from, say,

Pennsylvania, when they hit the Smokies. Almost a natural "cultural

shock," these trees announce that you have arrived in a different

place. Magnificent magnolias appear along the trail, thinning in

number and decreasing in size as soon as you leave the cove.]

Along streams and on the shaded slopes below 1,220 meters (4,000

feet), look for rosebay rhododendron, yellow buckeye, basswood,

yellow-poplar, and other cove hardwood "indicator" species. They

signal that you still have a ways to go in your day's climb.

[Illustration: Rosebay rhododendron]

[Illustration: Yellow buckeye]

[Illustration: On the cove forest floor in spring you may be lucky

enough to spot the great white trillium. It was popular after the

Civil War for decorating graves and so has become, in many places, a

scarce plant because of this practice. It is protected here in the

national park, as are all plants, animals, historic structures, and

archeological artifacts. Please respect these--and the right of

others who follow you to enjoy them in their natural or historical

setting.]

[Illustration: The red squirrel's raucous chatter--you can't believe

such a small creature makes such a big racket--tells you that you

are leaving the cove forest. The "boomer," as it is known locally,

will likely announce your presence periodically to the whole forest

from here clear to the top of the mountain. Farther north these red

squirrels may be called pine squirrels; out west, chickarees. Some

would argue over the species involved, but not over the noise they

make!]

[Illustration: The songs of the winter wren and veery, a thrush,

also signal that you have climbed above the cove now. But the

northern bird of the mountains that excites us here is the raven.

This resourceful bird, often mistaken for the smaller crow, eats

anything small enough and drives away anything that's too big to

eat. That's an exaggeration, but ravens are contemptuous even of

hawks aloft in the same windstream.]

[Illustration: The spruce trees announce that you have gotten to

Maine at last! The blackish coloration of spruce forests reaching

here and there down off the crests of the Smokies is conspicuous in

all seasons. It is from this coloration of spruce stands that the

nearby Black Mountains of North Carolina are named. The spruce-fir

forest is a product of winter cold and summer rain in such a

combination that prevents their invasion by deciduous trees just

down-slope.]

Cove Hardwood Forest

[Illustration: Cove hardwood forest]

A degree of romance or mystique surrounds the cove hardwood forest.

The name was used as early as 1905 in professional forestry

literature, but was probably coined much earlier, perhaps in the days

of settlement.

The coves share all of their predominant trees with the neighboring

plant communities, and no common animal or plant is restricted to cove

forest. The key to its recognition is _variety_, particularly in the

make-up of the canopy, the name given to the roof level of any

woodland. Cove forest is not restricted literally to topographic flats

and hollows; it may also occur on steep slopes, where soil moisture

conditions are suitable.

In its best development, cove forest may sustain 20-25 tree species

tangling branches far overhead. Look for white ash, sugar maple,

magnolia, American beech, silverbell, and basswood. If most of these

are present, with or without buckeye, holly, yellow birch, and

hemlock, you are being treated to cove hardwood scenery.

Oaks, hickories, red maple and yellow-poplar (tulip tree) will also be

present, but these widespread species are not really useful in

settling the question. One often workable rule of thumb is the

presence of yellow-wood, but this small tree is absent from the cove

hardwood forest community in many parts of the park.

Many of today's typical cove hardwood trees have also been found as

fossils in rocks of Cretaceous age in the eastern United States. This

match up--and the recognition that the southern mountains have been

continuously available for land plant growth since Dinosaur Days--has

given plant geographers much food for thought. Cove forest is now

plausibly regarded as a very ancient mixture of species. Probably, it

was the ancestor of several other widespread forest communities.

Perhaps it was the haven of refuge sought by many plants and animals

during the Pleistocene glacial period. Its significance today is its

wealth of species composition and its heritage--millions of years of

forest evolution. We are fortunate that significant stands of this

forest type survive uncut in the Great Smoky Mountains.

A great benefit of these rich, lush forests for hikers is the

refreshing coolness they afford on hot summer days. Many people have

described them as "green cathedrals" because of the coolness, rest,

and peace they seem to engender.

[Illustration: When the yellow-poplar seeds into an abandoned farm

field it means that the field could eventually become a cove forest.

But the yellow-poplar needs the company of a dozen other species to

form true cove forest.]

[Illustration: The yellow-poplar grows fast and straight. Its bark

has white-sided ridges.]

[Illustration: Cove forest has less moss cover than the spruce-fir

forest, but it boasts more kinds of mosses. The abundance of trees,

flowers, and lower plants is produced by ideal moisture and a

temperate climate.]

Forest Openings: The Balds

[Illustration: Bald]

Most mountains show mosaic patterns of vegetation noticeable at a

distance, or on scenic postcards. In the Smokies high country this

zoning is conspicuous. These mountains rival the Rockies for all such

contrasts, except for naked rock above timberline.

There is no climatic treeline--roughly an elevation above which trees

cannot survive--in the Smokies. But two important treeless

communities, called "balds" by the early settlers, give this

above-timber effect here.

The baldness is not that of bare rock, but rather a mountain-top

interruption to the forest cover. The two types, grass balds and heath

balds, are alike only in appearance from a distance, and in their

preference for mountain summits.

The Cherokees wove the balds into their religion and folklore.

Mountaineers grazed stock on the grass balds and cursed the heath

balds as "slicks" or "hells." Botanists began to publish explanations

for these balds a century ago but you can still formulate your own

theory because there are no agreed-upon answers. The more careful the

study, the more puzzles arise. But the key in both cases seems to be

_disturbance_, the successive destruction of generations of tree

seedlings.

For heath balds the most obvious tree-killing agent is fire and so

fire was advanced as an explanation for their origin. Shrubs can burn

to the ground and grow back quickly, sprouting from their roots.

Mountain laurel, rhododendron, blueberry, huckleberry, and sand myrtle

all do this. It was theorized that where fire knocks out the tree

layer, there are the heath balds. But the rub is that some balds show

no signs of fire and yet are not nursing young trees.

Landslides eliminate trees, and winter winds may also discourage tree

growth. Heath balds persevere where slopes are steep, soil is peaty

and acidic, and the elevation tops 1,200 meters (4,000 feet).

Today the grass balds are a mosaic of shrubs, grasses, and young

trees. Open patches may be clearly dominated by grasses but the total

number of plant species present on grass balds is greater than the

number present on heath balds.

Explanations of the origin of grass balds have been much debated but

no theory has been accepted for them all. We do know that most grass

balds were used as high elevation pastures in the 1800s and early

1900s, and when the park was established the grass balds were more

open than today. Most Southern Appalachian grass balds are being

quickly invaded by trees and shrubs. The National Park Service is

developing plans to keep two Smokies balds open. Despite their

appearance, grassy balds have no floristic relation to true alpine or

arctic tundra vegetation.

[Illustration: The sundew, a bog plant common in the far North,

persists on one grass bald, near a spring. What look like dew

droplets are actually gluey traps for insects, which this

carnivorous plant kills and absorbs.]

[Illustration: Flame azalea thrives on grassy balds. At Gregory Bald

it hybridizes with other azaleas, producing an array of colored

flowers that botanists call a "hybrid swarm."]

[Illustration: When settlers grazed stock on the grass balds, many

common weeds such as dandelions were introduced. Before settlement

deer and elk probably grazed here, and may have helped keep out

encroaching trees.]

[Illustration: _The presence of trout somehow symbolizes wild nature

and pristine beauty. Pools such as this one at the foot of Grotto

Falls on Roaring Fork, are quiet forest gems that cause the finger

of many an angler to twitch uncontrollably._]

The Trout's World

The rays of the early morning sun bombard the tops of the trees spread

above the headwaters of Forney Creek. Some penetrate the canopy to make

light patches in the lower layers of the forest. But few break through

the rhododendron thickets along the stream to illuminate its mossy

rocks, its foam, and its clear pools. Down in the darkness beneath

overhanging shrubs, hanging in the current near the bottom of a pool, a

brook trout waits for the stream to bring it food. With dark mottling

along its back, red spots on its olive sides, and pale orange edging on

its lower fins, the fish is beautiful. It is also small, about 18

centimeters (7 inches) long, and lean, for it lives in a harsh

environment where food is scarce, the water is cold and acidic, and

floods and thick ice can scour. This is one of only a few trout in the

pool because there is not enough food for many.

The trout fed little during the night and now its hunger is acute.

Carefully it watches the rippling surface for insects, spiders,

crayfish, salamanders, and worms, or any animal life caught and carried

down by the current. But nothing appears. It noses up to a rock where

earlier in the summer it had found caddisfly larvae fastened in their

tubular little cases made of tiny pebbles. Now none are left on the

surface of the rock accessible to the trout. It searches other rocks and

eventually finds one caddisfly larva and a small mayfly nymph, flattened

against the under side. The trout dashes at a small salamander, which

escapes under another rock. Three crayfish also inhabit the pool but

they are too big for this particular trout to eat.

The trout's hunger increases and still nothing edible washes over the

miniature waterfall at the head of the pool. But suddenly sand and

gravel begin dropping in and there is a pulsing in the flow of water.

Upstream a bear has crossed and in its crossing it has knocked a beetle

off an overhanging branch. The beetle floats down one little cataract

after another, its legs kicking wildly and its wet wings vainly buzzing.

There is a splash as the trout strikes. The beetle will sustain it

through one more day.

In contrast to the brook trout's life in the headwaters, the rainbow

trout would appear to have an easier time in the lower reaches of park

streams. Here the pools are larger, the stream gradient is less, the

water is less acidic, and nutrients are more abundant. These conditions

allow more plant and animal life to exist, and therefore create more

food for trout. Also, at these lower elevations, where the water is

deeper, winter ice cannot form so solidly as higher up. These waters are

not exactly teeming with aquatic life, but they are adequate for rainbow

trout.

Trout do not generally remain active continuously. They tend to feed in

the late afternoon, at night, and early in the morning, resting at the

bottom of a pool during midday. Both brook and rainbow trout will have

resting sites, day and night, and feeding sites.

A favored feeding site is often the head of the pool, where a trout will

have the first chance to seize insects or other organisms carried into

the pool. It also has the option of hunting many of the forms of life

that live in the stream with it: insect larvae and nymphs of many kinds,

aquatic beetles and spiders, crayfish, leeches and worms, water-mites,

snails, salamanders, tadpoles, and the smaller fish.

Among the more common fishes that live in rainbow trout territory in low

elevation, low gradient streams are sculpins, dace, hogsuckers, river

chubs, shiners, and stonerollers. Hogsuckers, which reach 30 centimeters

(a foot) or more in length, can be seen in many large, quiet pools.

There they search for food on the bottom with their downward protruding

lips. Dace and shiners, members of the minnow family, are very small

fish and some species are brilliantly colored. The river chub and

stoneroller, also minnows, are larger; the stoneroller occasionally

reaches 28 centimeters (11 inches). Locally known as "hornyhead" and

enjoyed as a food fish, the abundant stoneroller may limit the numbers

of rainbow trout in some stretches of stream because of its own spawning

activities. Rainbows lay their eggs on gravelly areas in early spring. A

month or so later, before the trout eggs have hatched, stonerollers

frequently build their nests in the same places, covering or scattering

the trout eggs in the process. This sort of competition was probably not

expected or considered when rainbows were introduced to the Smokies;

nevertheless, the trout do manage to perpetuate themselves.

No doubt the most peculiar creature in the lower sections of park

streams is the hellbender, a huge, grayish salamander with a loose fold

of skin along each side. Commonly reaching 30 centimeters (a foot) and

occasionally more than 60 centimeters (2 feet) in length, hellbenders

hide under rocks and debris in swift water and feed on fish and other

animals up to the size of crayfish. Below elevations of about 500 meters

(1,600 feet) smallmouth bass, rock bass, and brightly colored little

darters appear in park waters. Brown trout, an introduced species that

has apparently entered the park from farther downstream, live in the

lower sections of some streams, and may be found in the headwaters of

some streams. Of the three species of trout in the Smokies, browns

generally prove most difficult to catch.

Since early in this century when rainbow trout were introduced, and

possibly even before, brook trout have been retreating upstream in these

mountains. In the late 19th century, brook trout occurred as low as 500

meters (1,600 feet); now they are found mostly above 915 meters (3,000

feet). The effects of logging and competition from rainbows are the most

frequently suggested reasons for this retreat. Logging, which began on a

large scale in the Smokies about 1900, brought with it many fires. The

resulting exposure to full sunlight caused the warming of low-elevation

sections of streams. Erosion of the denuded land added heavy loads of

sediment to the streams. These changed conditions, and possibly heavy

fishing pressure, apparently speeded the disappearance of brook trout

from the lower elevations. Rainbows were introduced and proved able to

survive. In the '20s and '30s it was noted that rainbows occurred in

streams up to about the upper limit of logging, and that brook trout

occupied streams above that point. Now, however, streams are once again

shaded by forests their full length; but brook trout, instead of moving

back down, seem to have retreated higher upstream. It appears that the

larger, more aggressive rainbows somehow prevent brook trout from

reoccupying their lost waters.

The National Park Service is concerned for the future of the Smokies'

one species of native trout, and especially for the few isolated

populations of brookies that may still remain unmixed with populations

of brook trout introduced from other parts of the country. On some

streams, waterfalls provide effective barriers to the advance of rainbow

trout, and use of artificial barriers for this purpose has been

considered. Stringent fishing regulations may help the easily caught

brook trout--and the gluttonous poaching that sometimes eliminates large

numbers of brook trout from long stretches of a stream must be stopped.

This type of management problem, how to preserve native species and

reduce the impact of exotic ones, is common in national parks. It is

only one aspect of a larger problem: How do we maintain natural

ecosystems in parks? This basic aspect of the national park idea is

difficult to implement in a country where human influence is so

ubiquitous.

Quite a few animals of the Smokies depend on streams and their organisms

without living entirely in them. They live with one foot in the water

and one foot on land, as it were. Raccoons out hunting at night patrol

streams, alert for frogs, crayfish, and mussels. Mink pursue fish,

crayfish, and other animals underwater, flowing downstream through the

foam as effortlessly as water itself. Kingfishers perch on overhanging

branches to plunge headfirst after small fish. Their loud, rattling

calls can be heard on the lower courses of many streams. The small

Louisiana waterthrush, a warbler, teeters on rocks in the torrent,

searching for aquatic insects. It nests on stream banks or behind

waterfalls. Its song, a lovely descending jumble of notes, cascades like

the water of its haunts. Harmless water snakes, mottled brown somewhat

like the water moccasin (which does not occur in the Smokies), like to

sun on limbs or debris near the water. Frogs, fish, salamanders, and

crayfish form most of their diet. Of the park's few species of frogs,

the green frog is the one most likely to be found in streams. Aquatic

turtles are even less common; most numerous is the snapping turtle, a

wanderer that sometimes reaches the middle elevations in the park.

Ducks, herons, and other large aquatic birds, scarce in the park because

there are no large bodies of water, do appear occasionally. On the

section of Abrams Creek that flows through Cades Cove you may surprise a

wood duck or green heron. Though not very productive of plant food,

Fontana Lake on the south border of the park sometimes serves as a

resting place for migrating waterfowl.

Perhaps we humans could be considered semi-aquatic ourselves, so

strongly does water attract us. In the Smokies people love to visit

waterfalls, plunge into favorite swimming holes, play among the rocks

and white water, and fish up and down the streams. One of my favorite

activities is simple stream-watching. Just pick a sunny rock, sit down

with your lunch, and watch. That's all there is to it. Trout will

eventually grow bold enough to come out of hiding. Birds fly out of the

dense forest to feed in the sunlit shrubs along the stream. Butterflies

wander down this open avenue, and dragonflies dart after winged prey.

Sometimes the unusual happens. One fine October day as I was just

finishing my sandwich, a little red squirrel appeared on the opposite

shore, edged down a rock to the water, and plunged in. It drifted with

the current and then scrambled out on a rock near me. A swimming

squirrel I had never expected to see.

In the Smokies you are seldom far from the sound of water. These

tumbling streams--the Little Pigeon, the Oconaluftee, Roaring Fork,

Hazel Creek, and all their many brothers--have voices as various as a

hound dog's. They talk, murmur, shout, and sing, rising and falling in

tone. Porters Creek once actually convinced me that people were talking

and playing guitars on its bank. This is the soul music of the

mountains.

Smokies Trout

[Illustration: Brook trout, or "spec," are a glimpse of nature at

her best. Their colorful delicacy is a sharp contrast to the

mountains' mass. The three-toned fins most easily distinguish it

from other species while it swims. A mountaineer here once paid the

local dentist 200 trout--caught in a morning--for some dental work,

as attested by account books. Park regulations now prohibit catching

the brook trout because it has lost so much of its original

territory that its numbers have been severely reduced.]

[Illustration: Brown trout, a European fish, has entered the park

recently. It inhabits the park's lower waters, which provide the

warmer, slower conditions it prefers. It will eat its own young as

well as those of competing rainbow and brook trout.]

[Illustration: Rainbow trout were introduced from the West during

the logging era via milk cans to improve fishing. They are larger

and more aggressive than brookies.]

The streams and rivers of the Smokies are famous for their purity. All

who come to these mountains are impressed by the beauty of the waterways

that have carved their way into the lush wilderness. More than 300

streams flow throughout the park. To many of us these streams mean only

one thing, trout. Actually, more than 70 species of fish have been

collected in the park, such as chubs, shiners, minnows, dace, catfish,

suckers, sculpins, darters, and even lamprey.

Trout live in fast-flowing water where their streamlined bodies enable

them to maintain themselves in the current, often close to the stream

bottom. Brookies, especially, require such pure water that they are

often considered a clean water "index."

[Illustration: This little creature is known as a mayfly, one of the

five insects most widely imitated by artificial fly patterns. The

imitations seek to simulate, as dry, wet, or nymph patterns, the

insects' larval and adult stages and their aquatic habits.]

[Illustration: _Male Adams_]

[Illustration: _Dark Cahill_]

[Illustration: _Olive Caddis_]

[Illustration: _Leadwing Coachman_]

[Illustration: _Yellow Hammer (antique gold)_]

[Illustration: _Gold Ribbed Hare's Ear_]

[Illustration: _Adams Variant_]

[Illustration: _Royal Wulff_]

[Illustration: _Light Cahill_]

[Illustration: _Secret Weapon_]

[Illustration: _Yellow Hammer (peacock)_]

[Illustration: _Muskrat Nymph_]

[Illustration: _Yellow Forney Creek_]

[Illustration: _Humpy or Guffus Bug_]

[Illustration: _Grey Hackle Peacock_]

[Illustration: _Yellow Wooly Worm_]

[Illustration: _Light Cahill Nymph_]

[Illustration: _Tellico Nymph_]

To rile up trout anglers just assert that one fly pattern is the best.

But in fly fishing areas such as the Smokies, a few patterns inevitably

emerge as favorites. Here as elsewhere, most artificial flies imitate

five varieties of insects common to most waters: mayflies, caddisflies,

stoneflies, alderflies, and ants. There are, in all, about 5,000 sorts

of human-tied flies in existence. Does that sound overwhelming? Well,

there are probably hundreds of thousands of varieties of insects which

trout may feed upon at one time or another. The following advice will

help you narrow your choice.

Dry Flies _Mayfly imitations_: Light Cahill, Quill Gordon, Royal

Coachman, Dark Hendrickson. _Caddis imitations_: Henryville Special.

_Ant imitations_: Black Ant, Red Ant.

Wet Fly and Nymphs Black Woolly Worm, Hendrickson, Light Cahill, Hare's

Ear, March Brown.

Streamers Olive Mateuka, Muddler Minnow (imitates grasshopper or

sculpin).

Watch out for low-hanging branches!

[Illustration: _Female Adams_]

(1) Head

(2) Wing

(3) Body

(4) Tail

(5) Hackle

[Illustration: Choosing a pattern may challenge today's trout angler

in the Smokies, but choosing your bait does not. Fishing is confined

to artificial lures only. No bait is allowed. Pictured here is Mrs.

Clem Enloe. She was 84 years old and lived on Tight Run Branch when

Joseph S. Hall took this photo. She was the last person--and the

only one in her own day, in fact--allowed to use worms as bait in

the park. She was also allowed to fish here any season of the year

because she flat refused to obey the new park's newly-instituted

fishing regulations. Park rangers didn't have the heart to throw the

book at her. "I was told that if I took her a box of snuff, she

would let me take her picture," photographer Hall said. That's the

snuff in her blouse. Someone later suggested that the rangers should

have tried snuff too.

We ask that you, however, please follow all fishing regulations!]

Logging

[Illustration: Loading logs onto a flatcar]

"These are the heaviest and most beautiful hard-wood forests of the

continent," read a 1901 report from President Theodore Roosevelt to

Congress. Lumber entrepreneurs were impressed, and the Little River

watershed was sold that year for about $9.70 per hectare ($4.00 per

acre)--all 34,400 hectares (85,000 acres) of it! Throughout the

Smokies, entire watersheds were staked off like mining claims. Largest

of all was a timbered plot owned by the Champion Coated Paper Company.

It included Deep Creek, Greenbrier Cove, and the headwaters of the

Oconaluftee River.

[Illustration: Horse team hauling logs]

Logging came to the Smokies on a large scale about 1900. Settlers had

always cut trees here, but the lumber companies and their money and

methods injected a major new element. Instead of a few oxen dragging

heavy logs to mill, the lumber companies introduced railroads, steam

loaders, and steam skidders on the landscape. As you drive from Elkmont

toward Townsend along the park road, you are driving atop the old

railbed that was laid down by the Little River Logging Company.

New towns sprang up: Elkmont, Crestmont, Proctor, Ravensford, and

Smokemont. These provided something new to the Smokies, a cash market.

For a time, one egg would "buy" a child a week's supply of candy. Local

families sold farm products to the loggers and sawmill men.

[Illustration: Steam-powered saw]

[Illustration: Cut lumber]

The Smokies yielded board feet of lumber by the millions. Cherry was the

most valuable wood, and most scarce. Tall, straight yellow-poplar turned

out to be the most profitable because of its large volume.

Fires and Flooding

[Illustration: The devastation seen in the photograph is the

aftermath of a fire that was set by sparks belched out of logging

equipment, an unfortunate source of several devastating fires in

logging's heyday.]

The ravages of logging led to fires, and the fires led to flooding. Many

fires were set by the flaming sparks from locomotives or log skidders.

More than 20 disastrous fires took place in the 1920s alone. A two-month

series of fires burned over parts of Clingmans Dome, Silers Bald, and

Mt. Guyot. Intense destruction occurred in the Charlie's Bunion area of

The Sawteeth in 1925. Hikers on the Appalachian Trail still see the

effects of this fire.

The fires created conditions for massive flooding. Parched soils were no

longer secured by living roots and the dense mat of plants that makes

the Smokies world famous today. Streams and rivers flooded, carrying

unusually heavy loads of sediment. These conditions were intolerable for

the native Southern Appalachian brook trout and apparently speeded their

disappearance from lower elevations.

Rainbow trout were introduced and proved able to survive. More recently

brown trout were successfully introduced. The brookies now occupy less

than half the territory they did in the 1930s.

[Illustration: Some flooding is still common today. This is natural.

The Smokies get their fair share of rainfall, making seasonal

flooding expected. And every few years prolonged or bad storms can

cause unusually heavy flooding of the streams and rivers. Here you

see the Little Pigeon River in flood near park headquarters in 1979.

Whenever Smokies streams or rivers are flooded it is very dangerous

to attempt crossing them. Don't try it. Revise your itinerary

instead.]

What about fires today? Lightning-caused fire is as ancient as the

mountains themselves and has always been a part of the forest's life

process. Some tree species actually depend on fire for regeneration,

such as the pin cherry. And the heath bald shrubs, such as blueberry and

mountain-laurel, prosper after a light burn. Fire is necessary as well

to dozens of flowering plants which quickly seed new forest openings the

fire creates.

We have long viewed fire on wildlands as a catastrophe, and indeed it is

often a piteous sight. But the urge to suppress fire completely

sometimes results in other unsatisfactory conditions. On many large

public land areas limited wildfires are now allowed to burn if they

don't threaten private property or human lives.

[Illustration: Fire-fighting airplane]

[Illustration: Fire-fighters on the ground]

[Illustration: _The Smokies is an ancient land-mass. Its plantlife

may have evolved uninterruptedly for more than 200 million years.

Continental Ice Age glaciation did not reach this far south, and as

the Atlantic Ocean has repeatedly inundated most of North America,

the Smokies remained an island._]

The Evolution of Abundance

Diversity is the biological keynote of the Great Smoky Mountains. Within

the national park have been found about 1,500 species of flowering

plants, among which are some 100 trees. There are around 2,000 fungi, 50

mammals, 200 birds, and 70 fishes, or more than in the fresh waters of

any other national park on our continent. There are about 80 reptiles

and amphibians, among which are 22 salamanders, which is probably as

many as can be found in any similar-sized area in North America. Present

conditions, such as warmth, abundant moisture, and a diversity of

environments brought about by the height and dissection of the

mountains, are partly responsible for this biotic wealth. But time, the

many millions of years this land has been above the sea and south of the

ice, has also been an important factor. It has been a span long enough

for a great many species of plants and animals to get here and find a

niche and for other species to evolve in the region. The story of the

arrival and evolution of the present flora and fauna is intimately

linked with the dramatic history of our continent.

We can only guess what life existed here during the 130 million years of

the Mesozoic era, because no rocks from this period exist in the

Smokies. But we can imagine that dinosaurs and primitive birds and

mammals roamed the region, as they did other parts of the continent.

Toward the close of the Mesozoic, flowering plants evolved and rapidly

became the dominant type of vegetation. We can guess that some of these

first magnolias, elms, and oaks grew right here in the ancestral

Smokies. Newly evolved bees probably helped to pollinate some of the

flowering plants.

The story becomes clearer and the life forms become more and more

familiar to us during the 65 million years of the Cenozoic, the present

era. In the first half of the Cenozoic, subtropical vegetation grew in

the southern United States and temperate vegetation grew north to the

Arctic. As these plants would indicate by their ability to grow here,

this was a time of warm or mild climates throughout the Northern

Hemisphere. Land bridges between North America and Eurasia, by way of

the Bering Strait and perhaps Greenland, allowed the spread of a

remarkably homogeneous flora throughout the then-temperate parts of

these two continents. The Great Smokies, with their feet in the South

and, as it were, their head climatically in the North, must have had

both subtropical and temperate vegetation early in the Cenozoic era.

During the second half of the Cenozoic, a cooling trend set in. The

widespread "Arctotertiary" vegetation of the northern latitudes moved

southwards through North America and Eurasia. By the end of the

Tertiary, which includes all but the past two to three million years of

the Cenozoic, the vegetation zones of North America were probably very

similar to those of the present. In the Smokies the trees probably

ranged from southern types, such as sweetgum, at low elevations through

the great mixture of cove forests and possibly to spruce and fir at the

highest elevations. After a long period of gradual change in climate,

the stage was set for the drastic events of the Pleistocene.

It is hard for us to imagine what an ice age must have been like in our

country. Perhaps the only way to imagine it is to visit the Antarctic or

one of the great glaciers in Alaska, and to watch giant slabs of ice

fall from those towering walls. Then ... mentally transport the scene to

the Hudson River valley or to the flatlands of Illinois, while

magnifying the thickness of those glaciers several times over. Then

imagine the surface of that great ice sheet stretching all the way to

northern Canada.

If you had stood near the front of that massive ice sheet, you would

have felt the cold air flowing off it. How far south that cold, dense

air flowed and to what extent it affected temperatures in the southern

states are unanswered questions. But undoubtedly temperatures were

lowered throughout North America and perhaps farther south. Some

scientists postulate a drop of 5.5 degrees Celsius (10 degrees

Fahrenheit) in mean annual temperatures in southern United States. The

high pressure that developed over the ice sheet would have pushed storm

tracks southward, increasing precipitation in the South.

Such continental ice sheets advanced at least four times as climates

cooled, and as many times they retreated during warmer intervals. With

each advance and the consequent cooler, wetter climate, there was

undoubtedly a southward shift of vegetation belts. In the mountains

there would also have been a downward shift of forest types,

particularly those of the higher elevations. That is, the higher

elevation species would begin to grow down the slope. In sheltered coves

temperatures probably did not drop as much as they did higher up or out

in the open lowlands, and soils in coves were deeper and more fertile.

The coves of the Southern Appalachians thus may have formed a refuge for

many temperate species of plants, including some forced southward by the

spreading ice. This is a factor in today's biotic richness or abundance

in the Smokies.

On top of the Smokies and other high mountains of the Southern

Appalachians, tundra (treeless areas) may have developed as winter

climates became too cold and windy even for spruce and fir, which is the

situation today on high peaks of the Adirondacks and White Mountains in

New England. Accumulations of blocky boulders in higher parts of the

Smokies resemble block fields in the northern Appalachians that probably

were formed above timberline in late stages of glaciation. From the

location of block fields, geologists postulate a treeline in the Smokies

somewhere between 900 and 1,500 meters (3,000 and 5,000 feet) elevation

during the last glacial period, some 15,000 to 25,000 years ago. If

islands of tundra did exist in the Southern Appalachians, it is not

likely that tundra mammals would have migrated from the tundra bordering

the ice front through the intervening forest to reach such Arctic

pastures in the sky. But some birds might have. Water pipits, which

today nest in the Arctic and above timberline on our Western mountains,

might have bred on these patches of southern tundra. And the few snow

buntings which have been seen wintering on Southern Appalachian balds

may have been returning to ancestral nesting grounds of the species.

Although Pleistocene tundra in the Smokies is a rather speculative

notion, it seems certain that spruce-fir forest existed below today's

1,400-meter (4,600-foot) limit. This supposition is supported by the

fact that fossil pollen and other fragments of spruce and fir have been

found in several lowland bog deposits of the South.

During the last Ice Age the Southern Appalachian spruce-fir forests and

their animals must have been a richer version of the plant-animal

community that exists in this zone today, for at the peak of the ice

advance northern plants and animals probably could migrate along a

continuous avenue of this boreal forest in the Appalachians. Bones from

cave deposits at Natural Chimneys in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley

indicate that such northern animals as porcupines, snowshoe hares, pine

martens, fishers, spruce grouse, and gray jays, as well as the now

extinct longnosed peccary and giant beaver, roamed that area 10,000 to

15,000 years ago. The still existing species mentioned above now live

farther north in the forests of New England and Canada. If such animals

could live during the late Pleistocene at 450 meters (1,500 feet) in

Virginia, many and perhaps all of them might well have lived at higher

elevations in the Smokies. In the case of porcupines, archeological

records from nearby regions in fact support this idea.

After the retreat of the last ice sheet a warm, dry period set in and

caused the development of grasslands as far east as Ohio. To what extent

this change in climate may have affected the Smokies is not known. But

it may have been responsible for the development of the beech gaps: as

the spruce-fir forests were forced ever higher, beeches and yellow

birches followed in their wake. The once continuous band of spruce-fir

forest through the Southern Appalachians would then have been broken

into patches as it migrated to higher elevations--and disappeared

entirely on the lower mountains. Today such forest is restricted in the

Southern Appalachians to the highest parts of eastern West Virginia,

southwestern Virginia, western North Carolina, and areas in and just

north of the Great Smokies. During the warmer, drier period following

glaciation, boreal forest must have been even smaller in extent.

Another consequence of warming was the northward migration of plants and

animals into territory vacated by the ice sheet (north of the Ohio River

and Long Island). The result today in northeastern United States is a

broad patchwork of forest types, each type dominated by a few species,

as in beech-maple or beech-birch-white pine forests. This stands in

contrast to the diversity of the cove forests from which the migrants

extended. Cove forests still harbor individuals of all these species.

What happens next? Has the Pleistocene epoch really ended or are we

merely between glaciers, awaiting the next invasion of ice? For the

Smokies the question implies others: Will the forest zones move up or

down the mountainsides? How will this affect animal life?

While terrestrial life in the mountains flourished during the

continent's climatic swings, aquatic life fared equally well. Within

Great Smoky Mountains National Park live some 70 species of fish.

Contrast this with the number in Shenandoah National Park in the Blue

Ridge of Virginia, which has only about 25 species. Why so many in the

Smokies? The answer parallels the situation for plants and terrestrial

animals: diversity of environments and plenty of time. All the streams

of the Smokies lie within the Tennessee River drainage, which is part of

the Mississippi River drainage. The Tennessee River has more species of

fish than any other river in North America, because of its many

environments (lowland, plateau, and mountain); the vastness of the

Mississippi drainage; its existence for many millions of years; and its

Pleistocene history. During glacial periods many species of fish were

forced southward by ice and cold glacial water. The Tennessee River

system offered them a refuge just as Southern Appalachian coves offered

a refuge for plants. Even the Mississippi itself was a less favorable

haven because it received most of the meltwater. In the headwaters of

the Tennessee, the streams of the Smokies thus benefit from their

contact with an ancient, relatively undisturbed river system. Within the

park, stream environments range from cold and fast to comparatively cool

and slow, with large, deep pools.

While most of the present plant and animal species of the Smokies have

ranges that extend far beyond these mountains, and while many of these

have spread here from other areas of origin, a few are restricted solely

to the Smokies. This suggests that they may have evolved here. One such

plant is Rugel's groundsel, a member of the Composite family that grows

to about 28 centimeters (11 inches) high and bears large, cylindrical

clusters of tiny golden flowers. This plant, abundant in the park's

spruce-fir forests, has not been found outside the Smokies. This

suggests that it evolved in the Southern Appalachians and that after the

last glacial period, when connection with other sections of spruce-fir

forest was broken, it persisted or survived only in the Smokies. By

comparison, the Fraser fir, though most abundant in the Smokies, also

occurs north to southwestern Virginia on the highest mountains,

indicating that it evolved at some earlier, colder time when spruce-fir

forest was more nearly continuous. The red-cheeked salamander, a

striking creature, is probably the sole vertebrate found exclusively in

the Smokies. Many other species of salamanders, however, are restricted

to parts of the southern end of the Appalachians and probably evolved

there, where the cool, wet climate and diverse topography provide ideal

conditions for this group of animals. How many other species of plants

and animals evolved in the region and subsequently spread far beyond

this point of origin we can only conjecture.

Natural History Sampler

These eight pages sample the abundant life of the Smokies, from

flowering plants and shrubs to birds, mammals, reptiles, and

amphibians.

Species are shown for various reasons. You may want to identify the

common species you see in the wild. Other species are uncommon and you

are not likely to see them. Still others are uncommonly beautiful, and

we don't want you to miss seeing at least their pictures.

Information, drawings, and photographs of bears and wild boars are

found in the Bears, Boars and Acorns chapter.

[Illustration: _Jack-in-the-pulpit_]

[Illustration: _Scarlet painted-cup_]

[Illustration: _Painted trillium_]

[Illustration: _Coreopsis_]

[Illustration: _Turk's-cap lily_]

[Illustration: _Bird's-foot violet_]

[Illustration: _Pink lady's-slipper_]

[Illustration: _Orange hawkweed_]

[Illustration: _Passion-flower_]

[Illustration: _Fringe-tree_]

[Illustration: _Flame azalea_]

[Illustration: _Mountain silverbell_]

[Illustration: _Dog-hobble_]

[Illustration: _Redbud_]

[Illustration: _Witch-hobble_]

[Illustration: _Umbrella magnolia_]

[Illustration: _Catawba rhododendron_]

[Illustration: _Yellow-poplar_]

[Illustration: _Flowering dogwood_]

[Illustration: _Fire cherry_]

[Illustration: _Mountain laurel_]

[Illustration: _Barred owl_]

[Illustration: _Wild turkey_]

[Illustration: _Common flicker_]

[Illustration: _Cardinal_]

[Illustration: _Yellow warbler_]

[Illustration: _Tufted titmouse_]

[Illustration: _Spotted skunk_]

[Illustration: _Cottontail rabbit_]

[Illustration: _Deermouse_]

[Illustration: _Whitetail deer_]

[Illustration: _Bobcat_]

[Illustration: _Opossum_]

[Illustration: _Fence lizard_]

[Illustration: _Leopard frog_]

[Illustration: _Midland mud salamander_]

[Illustration: _Ringneck snake_]

[Illustration: _Gray treefrog_]

[Illustration: _Marbled salamander_]

[Illustration: _Timber rattlesnake_]

[Illustration: _Pine snake_]

[Illustration: _Red-cheeked salamander_]

[Illustration: _Copperhead_]

[Illustration: _American toad_]

[Illustration: _Spotted salamander_]

[Illustration: _Oak trees add the brilliance of their turning leaves

to fall's burst of colors. The oaks' acorn crop is also important

winter food for several forest creatures. Chestnuts once supplied

winter food, too, but a blight virtually eliminated the chestnut

trees earlier this century, adding to the importance of acorns._]

Bears, Boars and Acorns

As frosts touch the earth and the reds and yellows of fall creep down

the mountainsides, oaks, hickories, beeches, and other trees shed their

fruits. Many animals will join in the harvest of this fruit, but

several, especially bear, deer, wild boar, gray squirrel, chipmunk,

turkey, and ruffed grouse, are particularly dependent on this mast, as

it is called, for their autumn and winter welfare. With the chestnut

gone these animals must rely mostly on acorns. Oaks, unlike the

chestnut, do not produce consistently, but fruit abundantly some years

and fail in others. In the poor years, when competition for mast is

keen, the effects are starvation, wandering, and mass migrations. The

appearance and multiplication of European wild boars in the park have

only added to the pressure on the native animal species. Acorn shortages

bring into sharp focus the life styles and survival systems of the

mast-dependent animals. From among these the wild boar emerges as an

ecological villain, although we should perhaps cast man, who introduced

the boar here, in that role.

The loss of the chestnut illustrates how a change in one element can

irrevocably alter an entire ecosystem. As the chestnuts of the Smokies

died, their place was taken primarily by chestnut oak, northern red oak,

red maple, hemlock, and silverbell. The annual mast crop suffered from

this change in two ways. First, only about half of the replacement trees

were mast-bearing oaks. Second, oaks are not dependable mast-bearers.

Mast failures seem to result mainly from spring freezes during the

pollinating and fertilization of oak flowers. Chestnuts bloomed in the

first two weeks of June when the danger of frost was slight and so they

bore well nearly every year. This difference in flowering time has had

reverberations throughout the animal world within these mountains. By

looking into the life histories and population dynamics of some of the

acorn eaters we may get some idea of the nature and extent of those

reverberations.

Whitetail deer prefer young forests and mixtures of forest and field

because in these areas an abundance of shrubs and herbaceous plants

provides ample food. The mature forests of the Smokies have relatively

little forage near the ground and so they support only small numbers of

deer. In the Cades Cove area, however, the lush meadows and

second-growth forest feed several hundred deer. In the fall deer join in

the mast harvest, but they do not depend on it as do the bears, gray

squirrels, wild boars, and chipmunks. Deer have the option of eating

twigs, buds, and herbaceous plants. They eat acorns, however, and this

nutritious food will help them enter winter in good condition. Deer

mating takes place from September to November in the Smokies, as the

mature males each run with a female for several days, then hunt for

another. In winter the bucks shed their antlers and join the does and

yearlings. In May or June the does give birth to their spotted fawns,

usually twins. The summer bands you see in Cades Cove are again

separated by sex as the bucks once again grow antlers in preparation for

the autumn battles.

Now that wolves and other large predators are gone from the Smokies,

starvation and disease are the principal checks on deer numbers. Late in

1971 a disease that causes massive bleeding struck the herd in Cades

Cove, killing many of the deer and a few cattle. But by the following

spring an increase in the production of offspring and the influx of deer

from nearby areas brought the herd back almost to its former number.

Gray squirrel numbers fluctuate even more dramatically, as populations

build up and then collapse, but these oscillations occur even when food

is adequate. Until recently, some observers thought these oscillations

were amplified by mast failures, but apparently they are not. In the

Smokies, gray squirrels are found mostly in the oak and beech forest of

the lower and middle elevations, while their smaller cousins, the red

squirrels, stick more to the upper elevations. In years of extreme low

population swings such as 1946 and 1968, many migrating squirrels have

been killed on the highways; others have even been seen attempting to

swim Fontana Lake. The loss of gray squirrels in 1946 was estimated at

90 percent for some watersheds.

Turkeys and ruffed grouse both feed heavily on acorns in the fall,

although they, like the deer, have other possibilities. Turkey and

grouse also feed on the fruits of dogwood and wild grape; beechnuts in

good years; seeds; and buds. A statewide study in Virginia found that

acorns supplied about one-quarter of the annual diet of wild turkeys,

and this proportion is much higher in fall. Acorns are also a top food

item in fall for ruffed grouse.

We come now to the two chief antagonists in the annual mast hunt, bears

and wild boars. The arrival of wild boars in the park has meant added

competition for bears, as well as many other disruptive ecological

effects. By considering the population dynamics and seasonal activities

of these two species, we get a clear contrast between their roles. One

fits in with the forest "establishment" and one clearly does not.

How many bears live in the park? This is difficult to determine because

bears are secretive and tend to wander. The National Park Service

estimates that numbers usually range from about 400 up to about 600,

depending on reproduction, food availability, extent of poaching, and

other factors. The estimates are based on intensive research by the

University of Tennessee in the northwest quarter of the park.

From about December to March black bears sleep, although they

occasionally come out for brief periods. During the University of

Tennessee studies it was learned, to the surprise of many, that bears in

the Great Smokies had a preference for denning in hollow trees,

sometimes as much as 15 meters (50 feet) above the ground. Typically,

such a tree has been broken off by storms and provides an entrance and

some sort of platform within that supports the bear. In such a den, or

one in a protected place on the ground, the female in alternate years

gives birth to tiny cubs weighing about a half-kilo (18 ounces) apiece.

Most bears leave their dens in late March or April and from then until

early summer, when berries begin ripening, they find food scarce. Black

bears are primarily vegetarians, though they eat almost any animal

matter they can find, from ants to large mammals, as well as carrion. In

spring they graze grasses heavily. Squawroot, a fleshy, conelike,

parasitic plant, is a favored food then, so much so that local people

call squawroot bear potato or bear cabbage. Roots and insect grubs also

help to see the bears through spring, a time so lean for them that

droppings are seldom seen on the trails. At this season bears roam

widely at all elevations. Mating occurs in early summer.

From late July until early September the bears concentrate on berries,

especially the blackberries growing in open places such as ridgetops and

balds, and the blueberries most abundant in open oak-pine woods. Since

insects and vertebrate animals are most numerous in summer, bears

harvest them more frequently then than at other times. They especially

seek beetles and nests of yellowjackets. With throngs of campers in the

park bears investigate this source of food, too. National Park Service

management practices are aimed at ending such scavenging--which makes

bears both dependent on and dangerous to people--and ensuring that the

animals live out their normal lives in the forest. Being deprived of

garbage will work no hardship because, for bears and most other animals,

summer is the season of abundance.

As fall progresses blackberries, blueberries, and beetles diminish in

the diet and acorns and beechnuts increase until they become the primary

sustenance. Bears are particularly fond of white oak acorns, the

sweetest. In their eagerness the huge animals, which sometimes reach 200

kilos (450 pounds) in weight, even climb trees and crawl out on the

branches as far as they can to eat the fruits or break off and drop the

branch tips for consumption on the ground. They also relish black

cherries and serviceberries. A park naturalist told me of watching a

very large bear climb a 5-centimeter (2-inch) thick serviceberry on

Spence Field, bending the tree double. Throughout the Southern

Appalachians you can see small serviceberries broken down like this by

bears in their quest for the fruits.

In most years the mast crop is adequate for all the animals dependent on

it, but in the years of failure bears are hard pressed to find enough to

eat. They wander down out of the mountains in search of food. In such

years many are killed by hunters outside the national park. The loss of

bears in some of the poorest mast years may be one-third to one-half of

the park's bear population.

Enter now the European wild boar. Its history in the Smokies is another

classic example, along with the chestnut blight fungus, balsam woolly

aphid, Norway rat, Starling, and a host of other pests, of the damage

that can be done by introducing an organism to territory outside its

normal range. The wild boars in the Smokies are believed to be

descendants of animals, purportedly of stock from Germany, that escaped

from a game preserve on Hooper Bald, southwest of Fontana Lake, in the

early 1920s. They were first detected in the park about 1950. By the

early 1960s wild boars, now with some admixture of domestic pig blood,

had spread east to Newfound Gap and, in the lower country, to Cosby and

possibly Cataloochee. Their occupation of the entire park seemed

imminent.

So now the Smokies have a wild counterpart of the domestic hog, the

staple livestock animal that mountaineers once ran year-round in these

woods. Horace Kephart's vivid description of the hog in the 1920s

applies almost as well to today's European wild boar: "In physique and

mentality, the razorback differs even more from a domestic hog than a

wild goose does from a tame one," Kephart wrote. "Shaped in front like a

thin wedge, he can go through laurel thickets like a bear. Armored with

tough hide cushioned by bristles, he despises thorns, brambles, and

rattlesnakes, alike. His extravagantly long snout can scent like a

cat's, and yet burrow, uproot, overturn, as if made of metal."

The hog's long legs, thin flanks, and pliant hoofs fitted it to run like

a deer and climb like a goat, Kephart claimed, calling it "a warrior

born" who was also a first rate strategist.

The European wild boar sometimes attains a height of nearly a meter

(three feet) at the shoulder and a weight of 100 kilos (220 pounds). It

is built rather like a bison, the hindquarters sloping down from the

shoulders. The long, hairy-tipped tail and, in the male, well-developed

tusks also distinguish it from its domestic counterpart. Obviously, this

is a formidable animal, as numerous boar hunters who have been treed by

it or watched it cut up their dogs can attest. Normally, however, wild

boars are not dangerous and run at the sight or scent of man. One

evening, standing in a yard where a boar had rooted the night before, I

asked a long-time boar observer about the animal's pugnacity.

"They won't attack you unless they're wounded or hemmed," this observer

related. "I've tried to get them to charge me. Even picked up a

squealing piglet once, but the sow didn't attack."

Wild boars feed mostly at night. Campers near balds in the western

section of the park sometimes see them or hear their grunts and snorts

as they run away. The females and young travel about in family groups

but the males are loners. Though the animals are elusive, spending their

days resting in dense cover, the signs of their rooting are very obvious

on balds, in beech gaps and open fields, and along trails in moist

woods.

Wild boars move seasonally in quest of food. In spring they eat a lot of

grass, as well as succulent roots and the upper parts of wildflowers,

which are especially abundant in cove forests and high-elevation beech

forests. In summer they continue eating grass and other herbaceous

plants but also seek huckleberries, blueberries, and blackberries. When

acorns, hickory nuts, beechnuts, and other tree fruits start falling,

they turn their attention to these, which in abundant years can carry

the boars through winter. When the mast fails they feed heavily on

tubers of wild yam and the outer layer of pitch pine roots. Throughout

the year they supplement this vegetable diet with whatever

invertebrates, salamanders, snakes, rodents, and other small animals

they can root out or catch. Carrion and garbage are always welcome, too.

The wild boar, as classic an omnivore as his domestic cousin, will eat

almost anything.

Aside from the competition they give other masteaters in the critical

fall season, wild boars upset the ecological balance in additional ways.

Susan Bratton, research biologist with the National Park Service's

Uplands Field Research Laboratory here in the Smokies, has made detailed

studies of boar damage. She found that in some areas boars had greatly

reduced the numbers of certain wildflowers, such as spring-beauty,

yellow adder's-tongue, and wake-robin. Many other kinds of herbaceous

wildflower species in the park are known to have been eaten, uprooted,

or trampled. Wild boars also damage tree roots and seedlings, but

apparently avoid beeches, thus favoring the root sprouting of this

species. They root up grass sod on balds, which speeds the invasion of

balds by other herbaceous plants and trees and they cause soil erosion

by removing the plant cover. They also harm native species by preying on

those mentioned above and destroying the nests and eggs of

ground-nesting birds such as grouse and turkeys.

With such a list of black marks against the non-native wild boar, it

becomes readily apparent why the National Park Service is concerned

about its numbers in the park. Conventional methods of trapping and

directly reducing the boar population have limited their impact in

certain areas of the park. Unfortunately, because of the animal's

tremendous reproductive capability the efforts are not successful in

reducing the total park population. The technology to completely

eradicate the boar from the park is not available at the present time.

Park Service research is now aimed at control methods. Estimates of the

boar population have ranged upward to 2,000. But no reliable method of

counting the boar in the park has yet been devised. University of

Tennessee research has indicated that there may be at least 1,000 boars

in the national park. Other estimates suggest there might be twice that

many. Wild boars can reproduce any month of the year and most females

bear a litter of from one to twelve piglets each year. And the wild boar

has few enemies in the park, although bears and bobcats may occasionally

take the young boars. With such a high reproductive potential, and so

few controlling agents, the wild boar population has reached a size that

severely alters and damages the park's natural environment.

Contrast these population dynamics with those of a competing native

species, the black bear: Bears reproduce every other year, typically

giving birth to only two cubs. When the mast fails they may not

reproduce at all, apparently because the embryo does not implant, or is

resorbed, or the mother has insufficient milk to keep the young alive.

In some years, when bears wander out of the national park, many are

killed by hunters. Each year poaching within the park takes several

more. Hunting aside, bear populations became attuned to the supportive

capacity of the environment through centuries of adaptation. Wild boars

have been here only a few decades, far too short a time for the species

to be integrated into the total forest community.

As the wild boars multiply unchecked in the park, they damage ground

cover, inhibit tree reproduction, increase erosion, and decrease the

native animals with which they compete for food. Perhaps hardest hit are

black bears, squirrels, and those other species that in the fall depend

on the all-important acorn.

Boars

[Illustration: Boars]

The wild boar came to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park

uninvited in the early 1920s. While its population remained small, the

boar was not thought a menace. Since the 1960s however, it has become

obvious that the boar constitutes an ecological disaster of great

proportions. In feeding, the animals move together and root up the

ground or a stream bed with unbelievable thoroughness.

After boars have tackled a stretch of trout stream, it looks as though

a bulldozer had churned it up. Presumably they seek aquatic insects,

salamanders, and even a few small fish. Salamanders are among the

park's chief biological treasures, so the boars have not endeared

themselves to those who are responsible for managing wildlife here in

the park.

Another biological prize in these mountains is the grass bald habitat.

These energetic porkers were not slow to find balds a food source,

ravenously digging for June beetle larvae. The grass bald survives

only by the turf's resistance to tree invasions, so the boar and its

plowing threatens the existence of these unique, and as yet

incompletely understood, grass balds that are both prizes and puzzles.

Over the years it has been suggested that diverse species are directly

threatened by the expanding boar population. These include

ground-nesting birds, yellow adder's-tongue and other wildflowers, and

possibly deer and bear.

Studies are underway to determine the extent of the boar's damage, and

hence the real threat they pose. But we have no good comparative

figures on the populations of other species for the years before boars

arrived. Despite this lack, it has not been difficult to brand the

boar a villain. But to control them has not been so easy. In good

years they thrive--and gobble up more park resources.

There is a food preference relationship between turkeys, deer, bear,

and boars in their mutual dependence on annual acorn and hickory nut

crops. The widespread chestnut blight wiped out this dependable annual

crop of nuts on which bears, deer, turkeys, and other animals fed in

preparation for winter before the boars arrived. Now all these species

compete--and the prolific boar is a lusty competitor--for a more

uncertain acorn/hickory crop.

Some would cast the boar as pure villain. Others would say that people

are at fault for introducing the boar into this region as an exotic

species. The sport of hunting was anticipated with relish but the

consequences were not considered at all. The boars have now bred with

domestic pigs to such an extent that the markings vary from animal to

animal. Some show definite spots, others few or none at all. Wildlife

artist George Founds, who drew the boars and bear on these pages, was

once a guide in this region.

[Illustration: The woodlands rooting of the boars is impossible to

miss at trailside. A person could not do as well with ax and hoe--or

power tiller!]

[Illustration: The wild boar is winning the contest with park

efforts to control it. Fewer than 200 are trapped or killed in a

year, and even these are soon replaced by the boar's high

reproductive capabilities.]

[Illustration: Piglets are born nearly naked, so the mother builds a

nest for their first week of life.]