Tag: Wildlife
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The Obscure Tale of the Appalachian Cottontail
By Frances Figart, Creative Services Director
What’s that cute, fluffy animal with long ears hopping at top speed across the top of Clingmans Dome in Great Smoky Mountains National Park? Is it the common eastern cottontail, or could it be the rare Appalachian cottontail?
The Appalachian cottontail (Sylvilagus obscurus) is a
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Fun Ways to Visit The Smokies From Home
By Hayley Benton
While you may not be able to visit us at Great Smoky Mountains National Park right now, your kids can have their favorite park characters and critters delivered for a Smokies adventure in compliance with all shelter-in-place rules.
Powered by all-terrain imagination, this U.S. Park Ranger truck races to save the day,
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Curiosity Cabinet: Hickory Horned Devils become Regal Moths
By Peyton Proffitt
This month, curiosity drew me to the remarkable collection of insects housed at the Twin Creeks Science and Education Center. At first, I was overwhelmed by the number, age and diversity of the specimens, but after a few minutes, I decided to focus on specimens that made me think, “Oh, how pretty!”
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Studies Offer Insights into Behaviors of Park Bears
By Steve Kemp
Four research projects focused on bears in the Great Smoky Mountains are currently underway or have recently been completed. Of the four, the results of two are troubling, one is encouraging, and on the last, it’s too early to tell.
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Science at Sugarlands Features Wildflowers
By Frances Figart
You couldn’t pick a more perfect month than May to head out on the trails to spot wildflowers. to help you learn more about them, Discover Life in America will host Wildflowers: Gems of the Smokies at the Sugarlands Visitor Center Friday, May 17, from 1–3 p.m.
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Presidential Pets & the Great Smoky Mountains
The White House has been home to more pets than people over its long history. First Pets have ranged from the commonplace, like Bo, President Obama’s Portuguese water dog, to the Scottish terriers, English springer spaniel, and cat that President George W. Bush. Others have included the bizarre and downright dangerous, such as the zebra kept by Theodore Roosevelt and the alligator, a gift from the Marquis de Lafayette, that John Quincy Adams kept in a White House bathroom.
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Gearing up, Branching out
Every spring people flock to the Smokies to view our park’s spectacular displays of wildflowers that begin blooming at the lower elevations and creep uphill as the temperatures warm and days grow longer.
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Fighting Creek Nature Trail
Note: Originally posted on January 2014. Reposted here with permission from the author.
Great Smoky Mountains National Park was my hiking destination yesterday. Leaving Asheville at 9 a.m., I traveled to Gatlinburg for a meeting with Todd Witcher, executive director for Discover Life in America, a nonprofit organization that manages a thorough scientific inventory of all the park’s species that has been going on for the past 15 years.
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A swinging railroad bridge in Elkmont? I had no idea!
Anyone who has spent time in the Great Smoky Mountains can appreciate the rugged beauty of this Southern Appalachian range. Steep mountainsides, craggy gorges and boulder-strewn waterways are part and parcel of the landscape.
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My last Experience Your Smokies
For my last Experience Your Smokies, our class visited the Great Smoky Mountains Institute at Tremont and the National Park Service Collections Preservation Center in Townsend, TN. Appropriately, the focus of our day was on the value of experiential and outdoor learning.
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