• Approximately 1,500 black bears live in the national park.

    Great Smoky Mountains

    National Park NC,TN

Resource Roundup: June-July, 2009

Issue 4 > Resource Roundup                                                                           
 
Sifting soil for archeological artifacts.

NPS photo.

Sifting soil for archeological artifacts.

Click on each Resource Management Program to learn about their current projects.

Air Quality

  • A soggy summer

Cultural Resources & Archeology

  • Surveying spots for construction
  • Weather stations

Fire

  • Managing fire
  • Wet weather

Fisheries

  • The Brook trout is back

Inventory & Monitoring

  • Preserving plants for posterity
  • A checkup for Smoky Mountain wetlands
  • Scintillating slime molds
  • High elevation rare plants
  • Encouraging more climate change research
  • Bee city

Vegetation

  • New invasive species
  • Expeditions to eliminate invasives
  • Big Creek intern work
  • Cades Cove plants and fire

Wildlife

  • “Critter Gitters”

Partner Projects

  • Conference Call for Abstracts: Southern Appalachian Man and the Biosphere

Return to the Dispatches from the Field: Issue 4 main page.

Did You Know?

Flame azalea can be found growing on heath balds in the park.

The park’s high elevation heath balds are treeless expanses where dense thickets of shrubs such as mountain laurel, rhododendron, and sand myrtle grow. Known as “laurel slicks” and “hells” by early settlers, heath balds were most likely created by forest fires long ago.