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Author: Aaron Searcy
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“Fishes” field guide dedicated to aquatic biodiversity of the Smokies
Great Smoky Mountains Association has published a new field guide dedicated to some of the aquatic residents of the Smokies. Intuitively organized and small enough to fit in a pocket, Fishes of the Smokies includes detailed photography and key details for each species featured.
Written by debut author Grant Fisher, Fishes of the
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GIS makes it simpler to map a complex park
Twenty years ago, the map room in Great Smoky Mountains National Park might have been dedicated to heavy, flat-file drawer cabinets—each one filled with stacks of intricately detailed maps of the mountains. These days, the room is much more spartan.
Gone are many of the paper maps and heavy cabinets. In their place is a relatively modest
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Celebrating Four Decades of the Digital Age in the Smokies
Almost exactly forty years ago on April 28, 1982, an internal park service newsletter announced some terribly exciting news—Great Smoky Mountains National Park would be receiving its very first computer.
“Eureka!” the editor’s note proclaimed. “We have one … a computer, that is …. Well, almost. The
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Appalachian Studies Association honors ‘Sepia Tones’ series with e-Appalachia Award
On Thursday, March 17, Great Smoky Mountains Association’s ongoing podcast miniseries, Sepia Tones: Exploring Black Appalachian Music, was recognized with the e-Appalachia Award at the 45th Annual Appalachian Studies Association Conference.
The e-Appalachia Award is given annually in recognition of an outstanding media source that
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Convergence of Diversity: The Twin Creeks Natural History Collections
By Aaron Searcy. All images by Joye Ardyn Durham.
The Natural History Collections room at Twin Creeks Science and Education Center in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, is the one place in the world where the endlessly surprising diversity of life found in Great Smoky Mountains National Park is assembled together as one astounding whole.
Beyond a
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Bats Hang in the Balance in Wake of Disease
Bats seem to be everywhere this time of year.
Their little silhouettes hang as holiday decorations fashioned out of plastic on festive front porches and shop windows, just next to the skeletons and giant spiders. As for our real bats—the living, breathing keystone species that spend their nights hunting for insects on the wing—
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