Tragedy up And Down the East Coast in Hurricane Bill’s Path

This past weekend Hurricane Bill’s path up the east coast of the United States and Canada seemed the best possible outcome not making landfall as it burned up its energy and punch. However damaging waves, rip currents, and treacherous seas wreaked havoc on those who dared to get near.
In Florida a 54 year old man drowned while body surfing on Saturday in the storm fueled waves. On Sunday as many as 5 people were washed into the ocean at Acadia National Park when a large wave crashed over the viewing platform at Thunder Hole. Two of the five people were immediately rescued by bystanders and the three others were swept out to sea. Two of the three were rescued by US Coast Guard but the third, a seven year old girl was not and her body was recovered hours later.
The death of Michael Nemes on Saturday in Onslow County would also appear to be related to Hurricane Bill as more details of this tragedy become available.
Michael Nemes a vacationing police officer from New York was driving a jet ski on the ocean side of Brown’s Inlet a remote location along the North Carolina Coast near Camp Lejeune when the single vessel accident occurred around 4 pm.

The incident occurred around 4 p.m., said Jackie Schmidt of Jacksonville and his brother-in-law, Dan Haugk, of Holly Springs, who attempted to rescue the Nemes.
Schmidt and Haugk had been on their personal watercraft on the sound side of the beach, when a woman came running up the beach screaming that someone was drowning.
“We took off on our skis and went around the sound side, through Browns Inlet, and saw a man out in the ocean,” Haugk told The Daily News on Sunday.
Initially, Haugk said he thought a small boat had capsized, but as he got closer, he discovered it was a personal watercraft.
“I saw a person floating in the distance. He was face down and he was wearing a life jacket. I got as close as I could with the jet ski, then jumped off the jet ski and turned him over to see if he was responsive,” Haugk said.
Schmidt and Haugk tried to pull the man onto their personal watercraft, but the waves were too strong.
“About that time, an 8-foot wave hit us. I lost track of (Nemes) and the jet ski sunk,” said Haugk, who said he swam to shore on Browns Island. Haugk was able to spot Nemes out in the surf and, with Schmidt’s help, pulled him out the water.
“He had no pulse. He was unresponsive,” Haugk said.

Jacksonville Daily News
It took rescuers from Swansboro over an hour to reach the scene after the initial 911 call according to bystander reports. This accident remains under investigation by the NCWRC as well as the local medical examiner.
The power of the ocean especially when a storm is present or nearby can be over whelming. It would appear that in all these cases people wanted to be close to the excitement a storm like this can generate and the awe inspiring splendor of Mother Nature’s fury. Unfortunately they got caught up in that fury and paid dearly.

Back From The Mountains

With some of the warmest temperatures of the summer hitting the triangle this past weekend it seemed like a great weekend to head for the mountains. While the mercury flirted with the 100’ mark at home the mountains were much cooler. Saturday morning sitting at the edge of a meadow with the sounds of the stream running behind you and watching turkeys, butterflies, and lots of other nature was a great sight. That is a breakfast I’ll not soon forget.
I’ve got a number of stories to tell you as well as an update on the elk herd and lots of great photos. So I hope you check back this week for these great stories.

Saving The Natives

A battle to save the native brook trout in Great Smokey Mountain National Park in Tennessee and North Carolina is going on. The introduction of nonnative rainbow trout and the damage to pristine streams over the years has just about eliminated the brook trout from the park.

Park fish biologist Steve Moore led the way, poking an electroshocking pole into the swift-flowing stream. The device produced a 500-volt, 0.6-amp charge that knocked out the brookies but didn’t harm them. Moore’s colleagues scooped up the stunned fish and deposited them in the buckets. Soon frisky again, the diminutive brookies measured 5 to 8 inches long.
The Cosby Creek crew, and another on nearby Tom’s Creek, collected 355 brook trout one morning earlier this month. The fish roundup was a major part of a long-term project to restore the colorful trout in 35 to 40 miles of former habitat in park streams. So far, five streams on the N.C. side and four on the Tennessee side have been completed.

N&O

Hopefully their efforts will be successful and the brook trout will once again be plentiful. Having caught both brook trout and rainbows I got to admit that I’m partial to the brookie. I think they fight better and in my book they are a very pretty fish.

Go West Young Man

Bryce Canyon National Park

My wife and I just returned from a 10 day trip out west to celebrate our 15th wedding anniversary. Certainly a milestone for anyone to live with me for 15 years I guess once I learned to not butcher critters in the kitchen it got easy (Ha Ha).
We flew to Vegas and supplied up and headed for Utah. We put 2000 plus miles on the rental car and visited 6 national parks, 1 state park, and 3 national monuments plus I got sick. That was certainly the downer of the trip I got a nasty cold that about wiped me out. I’m sure the fact that we were at a much higher elevation contributed to my fatigue as well. One day we drove to two stores (25 miles apart) looking for NyQuil but couldn’t find any but the next day I found some in a small camping store on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon.
Between my feeling under the weather as well as the remoteness of the places we were I certainly did not get to update my blog as much as I wanted to. No need to fret I’ve got a number of posts that should have been made last week that I’ll make the next couple of days so it will be a feast of information for a while out here. Not to mention the number of photos I took of critters and landscapes along the way. Utah is a beautiful state and I can’t wait to share some of the photos and the stories with you.

National Park Lead Ban Makes No Sense

Mike Zlotnicki’s column in the N&O about this ban points out how ridiculous the ban will be.

Sounds noble, but is it necessary? Should places such as Cape Hatteras National Seashore be managed in the same fashion as, say, Yellowstone National Park, which has a ban on lead fishing tackle and doesn’t allow hunting?

I wonder how many birds die from eating a lead weight used for surf fishing?

Bob Eakes, owner of Red Drum Tackle Shop in Buxton, who also sits on the board of the American Sportfishing Association.

“It took us by surprise,” he said. “This thing floored a lot of people. Ingested lead by birds and ducks is bad, but what bird can ingest an 8-ounce pyramid sinker? This park service is out of control. They’re not using good science.”

I’D agree it seems like the National Parks Service is out of control on this issue but should we be surprised with the bunch of lefties we got running this country? A lead ban on fishing tackle maybe the least of our problems.

Report Finds Lack of Oversight and Supervision by National Park Service in Biologists Death

Last year Eric York a biologist for the National Park Service died from the plague after doing a necropsy on a mountain lion that died from the same disease inside of Grand Canyon National Park. A year latter a report has been completed on his death;

National Park Service investigators found unsafe work practices, violations of federal labor regulations and park policy failure in the death of wildlife biologist Eric York, 37, who was found dead Nov. 2, 2007.

Their report recommended additional supervisor oversight and further safety requirements for handling dead animals.

York — who was not wearing gloves when he conducted a post-mortem examination of the cougar — died alone on a couch in his house on the canyon’s South Rim sometime between Oct. 31 and Nov. 2 from an advanced stage of pneumonic plague, The (Flagstaff) Arizona Daily Sun reported.

UPI
The National Park Service over the past few years has really been stretched and one has to wonder if the strains on the system has put workers at risk. A very tragic situation and even harder to think that this may have been prevented had the NPS management been giving employee’s appropriate supervision.

Rockey Mountain National Park Looking For “Elite Sportsman” to Cull Elk Herd

Rockey Mountain National Park has an over abundance of elk and has come up with a plan to cull the herd that does not use hunters. As a matter of fact they have gone out of their way to make it clear that the volunteers they seek to help them with the culling are not hunters.

RMNP spokeswoman Kyle Patterson said officials are looking for elite sportsman who can work as part of a team and understand how to ethically cull an animal.

She said the park doesn’t view the culling act as recreational hunting.

Hunters looking for a chance to pull the trigger for a recreational experience need not apply, she said.

Hunting remains illegal in the park since its inception, though hunting advocates lobbied the National Park Service to open the region to public hunts of some kind when it began considering culling efforts to reduce the herd size.

In fact, last year state wildlife commissioners attempted to change a 1929 federal law outlawing hunters in the park.

Park Superintendent Vaughn Baker said public hunting was not an option for the park, but the decision to allow the volunteers to assist in culling partly was related to requests for public access.

Coloradoan
I don’t know what the difference is between a hunter and an “elite sportsman” is but it seems to me you would want someone that has the knowledge base to humanly and safely kill the animal with a rifle. Additionally that person should have the ability to handle the chore of field dressing and packing the animal out … sounds like a hunter to me.

While I think it is great the National Parks plans to use volunteers to accomplish some of this task the opportunity for hunters to harvest a creature that their monies have gone towards establishing and protecting is lost. The National Park Service could actually raise some much needed monies to help with their operations by offering limited tags.

Post & Photo by Dan McLaughlin AKA Moose

Fall In Cataloochee

For any of my regular readers it shouldn’t be a surprise of my love for the Cataloochee Valley inside Great Smoky Mountain National Park. This weekend my wife and I took off for a weekend get away. Saturday at daybreak we were in the Cataloochee valley, a very foggy cool morning. The valley was alive with the sound of turkeys greeting the daybreak from their roosts and the sound of antlers clicking as the bulls challenged each other. As I often do I let my photos from that morning speak of the beauty of the valley and the nature that was all around us.

Story & Photos by Dan McLaughlin AKA Moose

Feral Hogs Moving In Cades Cove

Feral hogs have long been a problem in Great Smoky National Park and now they seem to be moving into the Cades Cove area of the park. At least visitors are starting to see them. Feral Hogs are very destructive and although you can try to control them it is unlikely you can ever eradicate them.

“The Park has had a wild hog management program since the mid-1970s to try and control the population,” Gray said. “There is no way we will ever remove all the wild hogs. They are extremely prolific at reproduction. There is no distinct breeding time for wild hogs, so they can breed throughout the year. Hogs normally have two litters a year and a normal litter is five but they can have up to nine piglets.

“They are very prolific and in the terrain of the Park it is hard to restrict them. We feel we are holding the hog population in check.”

European wild boars were imported in 1912 from Germany to a hunting preserve at Hooper’s Bald in North Carolina, which is on Cherohala Skyway in Cherokee National Forest about 15 miles southwest of the Smokies.

After being imported in 1912, “the wild hogs multiplied in that location and escaped to the mountains in 1920. On the way they interbred with feral pigs (wild domestic pigs) and the resulting stock looks like the wild pigs. They have tusks, a mane and dark, hairy fur,” Gray said.

The average weight for males is 125 pounds.

Cades Cove seems to be an ideal place for the hogs to move into with lots of mast crops for them to feed on. The problem is they’ll compete with native species for the food.

“Cades Cove is an ideal spot for wild hogs for several reasons. One is that they enjoy damp areas where they can do their wallowing behavior. They have no sweat glands so they need to find areas where they can cool off,” she said.

There are several areas in the flood plain and wetlands in Cades Cove where the hogs can wallow.

The wallowing creates depressions, which can cause erosion problems. Also, wild hogs carry bacteria, which can wind up in the streams and wetlands near where they wallow.

They use their snouts to root for food — plants, rhizomes and grubs. Areas where the wild hogs have rooted look like a rototiller has been at work, Gray said.

Basically wild hogs will eat almost anything — flowering plants, grubs, snakes, vertebrates, bird eggs and salamanders.

However, their mainstay food is hard mast crops — any kind of nuts, such as acorns, hickory nuts and walnuts.

Cades Cove is a prime area at this time of year because the acorns and other nuts are beginning to fall.

Hard mast is also a main crop for the larger mammals, like bear and deer, as well as a cadre of smaller Park residents.

Quotes and photo from the Daily Times

Story by Dan McLaughlin AKA Moose

Two People Mauled by Black Bear In Great Smokey Mountains National Park

An eight year old boy and his father were mauled in what is being reported as an unprovoked attack by a small juvenile boar bear near a popular hiking trail.

Evan Pala was cut, scratched and bitten. His father, John Pala of Boca Raton, also was cut before driving off the bear with rocks and sticks. They were both treated and released from a nearby hospital a few hours after the attack late Monday.
The boy was playing in a creek near a popular trail “and the bear just came and pounced on him for no apparent reason,” park spokeswoman Nancy Gray said.

The Rainbow Falls trail is a popular hiking trail where this attack took place and no shortage of people this time of year. While bear experts or rangers will tell you bear attacks are rare they seem to be happening more frequently.

“This is so rare,” said Lynn Rogers, director of the North American Bear Center in Ely, Minn. “I don’t know if you would call a bear like that a demented bear, like some people, or a super bear that decides, ’Hey, I can take a person.”’
Gray said roaming bears have been active this year, with several wandering into urban areas. Yet there have been fewer cases of “problem” or “nuisance” bears requiring capture and relocation.

MSNBC

This seems like a pretty bold attack by a predator but not outside what would be considered typical behavior. There have been other attacks including 2 fatal encounters since 2000. Telling people these are rare no longer seems like a reasonable explanation. Bear populations need to be kept in check what better way to instill fear of humans then to allow hunting? Bears need to see man as something to fear rather then one of its major food groups.

Story & Photo by Dan McLaughlin AKA Moose

Mopping Up On Evan’s Road Wildfire

Photo Taken by Moose in June at edge of fire lines

The fire that started on June 1st after a lightening strike inside the Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge consuming 62 square miles but now it is 90% contained. Many of those who fought the fire have returned to their homes and the remaining hotspots are well contained inside the fire and will likely burn out on their own or be extinguished by future rains. This is great news given the prognosis early on that tropical storms or a hurricane would be needed to knock this fire out. A tip of the hat and a big thank you to all the firefighters from across the country that came in to lend a hand. Much of the damage was contained to raw land, no lives were lost and only a few minor injuries were reported.

Story & Photo by Dan McLaughlin AKA Moose

Cataloochee Bugle Corp Helping Visitors and Elk Alike

In my earlier posts I talked about the calving season in Cataloochee as well as the impact of Chronic Wasting Disease on the small herd. This week I want to talk about a group of dedicated volunteers who make a difference.

A small group of volunteers assist Park Rangers in the Cataloochee Valley in managing the visitors to the small valley. The 100 + elk that now reside in this area are certainly a draw pulling in lots of visitors that will brave the mountainous road that leads into the valley.
Like a few other national parks The Great Smokey National Park depends on the volunteers to educate the visitors on elk as well as how to safely observe them, as well as assist with the management of the crowds the elk can tend to draw.

Since 2001, when the Park began an experimental re-introduction program to restore the long-absent elk, visitation to the Cataloochee area of the Park has nearly doubled. This visitation increase was driven entirely by the popularity of seeing elk. With it came a need to manage the high visitation in this remote mountain valley on the eastern edge of the Park, which is surrounded by picturesque natural beauty and holds remnants of an early European settlement.

NPS

The Bugle Corp program was started in 2007 my first encounter with them was this July when I visited. They were set up on the side of the road with their earth friendly electric truck with a mini exhibit about elk. They had a set of antlers from one of the bulls ( elk bulls shed their antlers each winter growing a new set back in the spring and summer) some samples of deer hide and elk hide, some of the collars the biologists put on the elk to study them, as well as a lot of other things. The volunteers did a good job of engaging both young and old in talking about the elk and educating them on the history of the elk as well as the behavior of the elk.

Latter in the evening I was glad to see the volunteers working to keep traffic moving so people could get through as well as reminding people to keep their distance from the elk.

“The Park’s goal is to recruit and train a new cadre of volunteers who can commit to volunteering on a regular, recurring basis,” said Babette Collavo, Volunteer in Parks Coordinator.
Each volunteer is being asked to work at least two evenings per month for approximately 3 hours prior to sunset, during the period May 23-November 2. This target period is during high visitor use from late spring during the calving season through the end of fall color season after the elk mating period.

If I lived a bit closer I’d certainly consider being a volunteer but maybe you would like to help out.

Interested persons should contact the Park’s Volunteer Coordinator Babette Collavo, at 865/436-1265

Story by Dan McLaughlin AKA Moose

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