Great Diversity Found in Smokey Mountains
11/17/97
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Headline: Great Diversity Found in Smokey Mountains
Source: The Associated Press
Date: 11/17/97
Author: Duncan Mansfield, Associated Press Writer
Copyright 1997 Associated Press. All rights
reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
TOWNSEND, Tenn. (AP) -- Daryl Ratajczak walks down a
steep slope in the Great Smoky Mountains to a pair
of acre-size woodland compounds surrounded by tall,
electrified fences.
The first fence keeps out the the sightseers and the
poachers. The second keeps in Ratajczak's precious
charges -- nine fuzzy black bear cubs, orphaned or
injured, that soon will be released in the nearby
national park.
``In the past, if something happened to the mother,
the cubs were pretty much written off,'' said
Ratajczak, a native New Yorker. ``That's how nature
works. Now at least we can save some bears.''
Ratajczak is the curator of the Appalachian Bear
Center, a fledgling nonprofit operation devoted to
the most identifiable mammal -- except for tourists
-- in the country's most-visited national park.
Some might question the effort.
There are more black bears in the half-million acres
of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in
eastern Tennessee and western North Carolina than in
decades -- 600 to 700 of them. This year's poor
acorn crop couldn't feed all the bears and many have
been coming down from the mountains in search of
food.
The black bear is just one of thousands of species
in the Smokies, considered one of the most
biologically diverse regions in the world.
The wolf, the buffalo and the mountain lion, despite
periodic unconfirmed sightings, are gone. But the
river otter has been restored, the first peregrine
falcons in a half century were hatched this year, a
red wolf restoration program is under way and there
are plans to bring back elk.
The native brook trout continues to expand its
habitat over the more aggressive rainbow and brown
trout stocked years ago.
The park has 59 identified mammal species, 200
species of birds, 70 species of fish, an estimated
20,000 species of fungi, 1,400 species of flowering
plants and 2,200 other plant species.
While wildlife managers try to preserve what is here
or restore what has been lost, scholars and
scientists are searching for what's still to be
discovered in a park that attracts 10 million people
annually.
John Pickering, an ecologist at the University of
Georgia, wants to inventory all the organisms in the
Smokies -- or at least 95 percent of them. Such a
tally would be the first of its kind.
``There is no place, other than Greenland or
Antarctica, with a complex forest, where we know all
the organisms that live in it,'' he said.
The study would be both a resource management tool
and a way of educating the public. It might also be
a source of discovery.
``There is an incredible wealth of genes and
biodiversity out there that we could be using for
society's benefit that we know nothing about that we
should be preserving,'' Pickering said.