On a recent trip to Isle of Palms, South Carolina, we had access to a sea kayak and decided to take advantage. There’s a pretty dramatic tide at Isle of Palms with currents to match so you have to plan your trip accordingly. We weren’t heading anywhere in particular so we just waited for high tide and spent a couple of hours exploring the nearby marsh.

There was a small island in the marsh between where we were staying and the Intracoastal Waterway – it looked to be about .2 of a mile away. I pulled a coastal map up online and saw that the channel from the end of our pier passed right by the island. So the girls (Izzy, age 9 and Maddie, age 5) and I decided we would go island exploring.

We launched during slack tide after the high tide had come in. It was a nice, easy paddle to the island and we found a good spot to beach our kayak. We strode ashore the island, which was maybe 150 yards long and 15 yards across at the widest point.

It seems “possession” must be hard-wired in the human psyche. We hadn’t been on the island five minutes when the first order of business became naming “our” island. After about five minutes of heated sibling debate, we declared the island Sister Island. But as long as we were naming things, it became apparent that the sea-worthy vessel that brought us to Sister Island also required a name. After another five-minute debate between Isabella and Madelyn, our vessel was christened Mad Bella. Now we were set to explore.

Believe it or not, there was a lot to explore on that 150-yard spit of terra firma and the only thing shorter than attention spans was the distance to the next discovery. I think that palmetto tree may have finally been acknowledged and substituted for palm tree. However, I’m pretty sure that “Krumholz effect” blew in one ear and out the other faster than the prevailing wind that shaped all the woody vegetation on Sister Island.

Izzy did discover deer tracks but I’m not sure she believed her dad when he told her the dog poop with the bits of shell in it was actually from otters. There were small depressions – maybe 2 1/2 feet in diameter – at both ends of the island that were apparently otter “haul-out” sites and/or bedding sites. You could see faint tracks. They didn’t appear really fresh but that could have been because of the compacted soil above high tide. There were a few empty crab shells scattered around – evidence of an otter picnic – that made great “treasures.”

Of course there was also evidence of pirate activity. But the girls couldn’t come up with an explanation for how Blackbeard’s crew came by Bud Light in a can.

There were enough broken off “tree statues” for climbing and enough treasures to be found that our loop around Sister Island took up the larger part of an hour.

By the time we got back to Mad Bella and launched her for our voyage home the tide was ebbing. Fortunately, it was just beginning to ebb and Izzy was a much stronger paddler than I expected. We cruised back home easily against the tide. Mad Bella was overflowing from all the loot from Sister Island and Maddy, who was a little reluctant at the beginning of the trip looked back and said, “Dad, I’m glad I came kayaking.”

Don Hendershot can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Last week the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service tried to put the last nail in the coffin of the eastern cougar by declaring it extinct. The cougar (catamount, panther, puma, painter, mountain lion) will surely not go quietly. This legendary gris-gris of boreal forests, eastern mountains and southeastern swamps will continue to haunt wild places on the ground and wild places in the heart for decades to come.

There also are some scientific taxonomy issues that need to be addressed regarding the eastern cougar. Fish and Wildlife adheres to taxonomy established in 1946 by S.P. Young and E.A. Goldman that lists at least 15 subspecies of cougar in North America. One of those was Felis concolor couguar – the eastern cougar. Since then, a change in the genus name from Felis to Puma has been widely accepted and the eastern cougar has been referred to as Puma concolor couguar. However, a 2000 study by M. Culver et al., which studied the DNA of 186 individuals from the 15 previously named sub-species, concluded that the entire North American population of cougars was/is one subspecies that they called Puma concolor couguar.

This lack of scientific consensus surely opens a large can of worms and wiggly intrigue. The Fish and Wildlife considers the Florida panther a distinct subspecies, Puma concolor coryi, and it was listed as endangered in 1967. Six years later the eastern subspecies (according to Fish and Wildlife), Puma c. couguar was also listed as federally endangered. A lot of money and resources have been expended in Florida to help rescue the Florida panther from extinction. However, if the eastern cougar is declared extinct there can be no “Recovery Plan” and there can be no “Critical Habitat” designation – the two primary avenues Fish and Wildlife uses to try and reestablish endangered species.

I must admit that I don’t know if there are different established policies and/or guidelines for reestablishing animal populations to their former range depending on whether they are listed as endangered, extinct or extirpated. I know that the eastern subspecies of elk was declared extinct in the late 1800s and that different subspecies have been used to reintroduce the elk in the East. And western subspecies of bald eagles and peregrine falcons have been used to reestablish populations of both species in the East.

It has become apparent to most biologists that there is no self-sustaining population of cougar in the East other than 150 or so animals in the Everglades and Big Cypress Swamp in Florida. The last documented cougars in North Carolina were reportedly killed in 1886, one near Highlands and one in Craven County. The last reported cougar from the Smokies was dispatched in 1920.

The Fish and Wildlife recognizes that cougars have occasionally been seen in the East but according to Martin Miller, northeast region chief of endangered species, “…we believe those cougars are not the eastern cougar subspecies. We found no information to support the existence of the eastern cougar.”

Reestablishing an apex predator like the cougar is, sadly, not as easy as reestablishing cool birds or potential game animals. Despite the documented ecological and environmental benefits of reintroducing wolves (another apex predator) in Yellowstone National Park, there is a rousing clamor out West to de-list the wolf and open season on them once again. It seems that when it comes to apex predators, the general public has a love-hate relationship – that is, they love to hate ‘em.

Don Hendershot can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Different people have different ideas of camping. Some people like to carry their camp on their back as they hike for untold miles, eating freeze-dried beans and drinking purified water from the streams. Some people’s idea of the camp is where you go to mix cocktails and sit in the hot tub and watch the big game on the 60-inch plasma TV.

Both of these “opposite ends of the spectrum” have their associated perks and pitfalls and both can be wonderful experiences. I have been fortunate enough to enjoy both aspects but I can tell you I’ve spent more time in a tent than a hot tub. The average camping experience usually falls somewhere in between, like a small tent at a backcountry campsite, a pop-up or RV at a front-country site, the hunting camp or the fishing camp, etc.

On my recent trip to Louisiana to count birds at Black Bayou Lake National Wildlife Refuge, near Monroe, I had the pleasure of camping for two nights along the Ouachita River with an old Mer Rouge chum, Gil White. Gil is the proud owner of a small one-room camp literally feet away from the edge of the high bank of the river, near Moon Lake, just minutes from Monroe.

The camp is, in fact, a little too close to the riverbank, and one of Gil’s projects for the summer will be moving it back a 100 feet or so. It seems the unusually high water last year caused the river to undercut a huge water oak standing just in front of the camp. If the tree goes, the camp, where it is now, would follow, and I don’t think it would make a good houseboat in its present form.

The camp is definitely one of those “tweeners” from above. No electricity and no running water, but dry with a wood stove and small covered deck for river watching. I’m guessing the total inside area is about 12 by 12 or so, maybe a tad larger and the deck extends out another 6 to 8 feet. Plenty of potable water in different sized containers, propane cookstoves, battery and gas lanterns, ice chests and a port-o-potty just down the trail insures all basic needs are met. And the best part – you don’t have to pack all that gear in.

Now this is not wilderness camping. The camp is barely 10 minutes outside of Monroe and probably less than a mile from Moon Lake campground sitting in an open field/pecan orchard with a gravel road just outside the gate, a few hundred yards away. But once you’re there and sit back and prop your feet up you’re instantly transported.

The sun is sliding west, disappearing through the woods beyond the river. Wood ducks, dark silhouettes in the dusk, are plopping in one pothole then splashing and squealing and rising up to circle the clearing and try another pothole, seeking that perfect spot to settle in for the night. Spring peepers, American toads, cricket frogs and others call loudly and lustily from slough and road ditch and swale while a huge moon crawls into the sky above the levee to peak at us between the clouds.

With bellies full of tasty camp grub that Gil cooked up on a small propane grill, a nice fire in the fire pit and a cool adult beverage, we decided to see if there were any owls in the neighborhood. I walked over to my truck and played a CD of great horned owls. By the time I made it back to my spot by the fire a pair were in the big water oaks above us quietly hooting and carrying on as if talking to themselves about where the interloper might be. The moon was so bright we saw the duo as they left the oak headed for another nearby post where they, once again, began calling as if challenging the intruder.

As bedtime approached a tug passed by headed upriver with two empty barges. Gil had a tent sent up on a mat outside and I retired to the camp. It was a pleasant, warmish February evening. All the windows in the camp were open. The frogs were serenading as loudly as ever, and the owls were still calling in the distance as I crawled into my sleeping bag.

The dawn will be our alarm clock. Black Bayou is only minutes away and the coffee pot is ready to go. Life is good.

(Don Hendershot can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)

An old friend from Mer Rouge, La., George Bowe, was passing through a couple of weeks ago so we decided to take a ride down to Cataloochee and see if the elk were out. We got down to the valley around 3 p.m. and before we got to the Palmer Chapel we spotted elk, grazing and generally lounging around in the fields. It was apparent that the large bulls had already dropped their massive antlers but the young bulls with spikes and small 4-point racks still had antlers.

The elk were brought to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in two groups in early 2001. The first batch of 25 elk from Land Between the Lakes on the Tennessee-Kentucky border was released in 2001. In 2002, another 27 elk from Elk Island National Park in Alberta, Canada were released into the valley. Original reintroduction plans called for a third release, but North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission decided that was too risky (they feared chronic wasting and/or other diseases might be transferred to local deer and/or cattle populations) and the Park Service nixed the last release.

Biologists in neighboring states don’t appear gripped by the same fears. Kentucky estimates its elk population at nearly 10,000 now. About 1,500 elk were released in Kentucky between 1997 and 2002. Tennessee has seen its 200 reintroduced elk (between 2000 and 2008) double in population and Virginia has plans to release hundreds of elk into the southwestern corner of the state this year.

The original reintroduction in the Smokies was billed as a 5-year experimental release during which time the impacts “on” the elk and “of” the elk would be studied and a determination would be made regarding the herd’s status. Because of the inability to release more elk, the study period was extended for three years. The Park Service changed the status of the elk in Cataloochee, early in 2010, from experimental to an official reintroduction. The herd has grown to between 130 and 140 animals at this point.

I was fortunate enough to get to go to Land Between the Lakes back in 2000 when the original elk were rounded up for the trip to the Park. Kim Delozier and his crew were quite professional and the capture went smoothly. However, it was apparent that these elk that lived in a 700-acre fenced-in enclosure were not the wild and wily beasts of the forests and prairies of the West, alert to every movement and/or scent that came their way; prepared to bolt for safety at a moment’s notice.

And the elk George and I found the other day at Cataloochee appeared to have a healthy dose of those genes. After we passed the Palmer Chapel we saw elk again in the front yard of the old Caldwell house. We drove on down to the end of the road and upon seeing no more elk in the fields, we returned to the Caldwell house.

There were a couple of elk (looked like a cow and calf) still grazing in the yard. We got out to get some photos and more elk came from behind the house.

I wanted to show George the old house so we started across the footbridge figuring the elk would mosey on. Well, they moseyed — only toward us, not away, so we returned to the road. Then about four young bulls came out of the woods and into the yard. A couple decided to practice their sparring moves.

Next, the whole group waded into the stream for a drink. And a really curious cow and calf started towards us. We didn’t want to run afoul of any of the Park’s elk protocol, so we retreated to the truck. The cow and calf came right up and started nosing the back hatch of my white Montero. Made me wonder if the Park Service had done any supplemental feeding during the snow and nasty weather this winter from white, Park Service vehicles or if maybe unthinking visitors have actually been feeding them.

Whatever the reason, it’s certainly not good to have 1,000-pound animals that acclimated to humans — they could present a danger to unsuspecting visitors. But more sadly, fed elk can be just as dead as fed bears.

Don Hendershot can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Environmentalism across the U.S. and around the world was spawned from the sludge of greed, industrialization and indifference. Some of the earliest environmental writings in the world date back at least to the 10th century and the Arab Agricultural Revolution. Arab “conservationists” were concerned about air and water contamination and the mishandling of animal waste. In 1272 King Edward I of England banned the burning of sea-coal because of air pollution. Benjamin Franklin led other concerned Philadelphia citizens to petition the Pennsylvania Assembly to remove tanneries from and stop waste dumping in Philadelphia’s commercial district.

And environmentalists in the U.S. continued to react to events such as the extirpation of the passenger pigeon and the near loss of the American Bison. Three-Mile Island, Love Canal and other environmental catastrophes have helped galvanize the image of American environmental groups as those champions who go around righting wrongs.

And, trust me, there have been; there are; and there will be enough “wrongs” to validate this “watchdog” mentality among environmental organizations. But there is also a great opportunity for a different pro-active mindset.

I wrote about the U.S. Forest Service’s stewardship contracts for The Smoky Mountain News on Jan. 19: www.smokymountainnews.com/news/item/3072-logging-for-cash-versus-long-range-forest-health.

The article points out many of the differences between stewardship contracting and traditional timber bids. Here are some of the main ones. The focus of the project is forest restoration not dollars for board feet. The money received for timber harvested pays for the restoration. Plus, most of the money stays in the region rather than going to the U.S. Treasury and can be used for other restoration projects across the forest.

Another difference, according to Dale Remington, sales forester for the National Forests in North Carolina, is that stewardship contracting is a collaborative effort from the start, bringing together loggers, environmental groups, the public and other interested parties at the beginning of the process to try and shape the goals and outcomes of the project.

Stewardship contracting also allows the forest service to enter into Master Stewardship Agreements with nonprofits and/or other agencies giving those organizations or agencies the responsibility of overseeing the project on the ground and ensuring that stewardship goals are met.

N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission just signed a Master Stewardship Agreement with the forest service in North Carolina, making it the first state agency in the nation to do so. According to Mallory Martin, deputy director of NCWRC, “This agreement will allow our two agencies to collaborate early on to explore the best possible use of funds to benefit North Carolina’s wildlife resources.” Other groups the Forest Service has worked with in North Carolina include the National Wild Turkey Federation, the Ruffed Grouse Society and Quail Unlimited. When I saw NCWRC added to this list, I thought, “Is this forest management or game management?”

So I called Remington to ask him how the forest service felt about stewardship contracting with environmental groups such as The Nature Conservancy or the Sierra Club.

“Actually, I’m meeting with David Ray of The Nature Conservancy [in North Carolina], Thursday [2/17],” Remington said. He said the forest service welcomed all partners with the resources and expertise to help administer stewardship contracts.

“I would love to be the first to sit down and hash out a stewardship agreement with an organization like, say, Wild South,” Remington said.

Now, for those watchdog groups out there, stewardship contracting doesn’t bypass the NEPA (National Environmental Policy Act) process and all the old avenues are still open if there is something untoward going on. But for those groups with the vision, the resources and the will to restore and help shape America’s forested landscape, now’s the time to shift gears.

(Don Hendershot can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..)

The Carolina Mountain Land Conservancy (CMLC) and partners are literally moving the earth over in Flat Rock to help restore the Ochlawaha bog.

Excavators are stripping about a foot of fill dirt from an old tomato field in hopes of exposing the natural wetland soils that lie beneath. Next, they will encourage the channeled Mud Creek, which borders one side of the old field, to meander through the wetlands the way infrared imaging shows it used to. Ochlawaha is a Native American name meaning “slowly moving muddy waters” and was once applied to the creek itself.

CMLC and the N.C. Plant Conservation Program obtained a small forested area of the bog in 1998. With the help of the N.C. Natural Heritage Trust Fund, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife, the Natural Resources Conservation Service, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the N.C. Clean Water Management Trust Fund, they are now working to restore at least 30 acres of bog habitat.

Southern Appalachian mountain bogs are one of the rarest ecosystems on the planet. Biologists estimate that only 500 acres or so of bog remain. Many scientists believe the area around Ochlawaha bog, fed by Mud Creek, could have contained the largest expanse of wetlands in the Southern Appalachians. Volunteers have worked planting native trees and the Western North Carolina Alliance has assisted with invasive exotic plant control.

Unfortunately for bogs and the critters and plants that call them home, they occupy/occupied what, in today’s market would be classified as “prime real estate.” So for settlers looking for a place to build a home, grow a crop or pasture domestic animals – flat was good. And while it was labor intensive, early settlers were pretty adept at draining wetlands. Then with the industrial revolution and ever-increasing mechanical capabilities, draining wetlands became easy and, even, filling depressions was just another day at work.

The vast majority of Southern Appalachian bogs are now homes, farms, subdivisions, strip malls, football fields, etc. And the vast majority of endemic Southern Appalachian bog flora and fauna is extinct, endangered and or threatened. At least 90 mountain wetland species in North Carolina are considered rare, threatened or endangered. They include the bog turtle, mountain sweet pitcher plant, swamp pink, Gray’s lily, green pitcher plant and bunched arrowhead.

The endangered bunch arrowhead, Sagittaria fasciculata, is known from only about a dozen sites, all in either Henderson County or Greenville County, S.C. It has been recorded from the area of Ochlawaha bog and CMLC and U.S. Fish & Wildlife and partners hope that by enhancing the site it will provide the opportunity to re-establish bunched arrowhead plus create habitat for other wetland plants and animals.

Mountain bogs not only produce habitat for wetland flora and fauna, they also assist in flood control by slowing floodwaters down and allowing them to soak into the ground. Bogs also work as great water filters taking sediment and contaminants out of the water.

Some other notable wetland-preservation efforts around Western North Carolina include the Rough Creek watershed in Canton, Flat Laurel Creek and Tallulah Bog.

I believe CMLC is on the right track — just build it and they will come, they being the bunched arrowhead and other endemic bog species.

Don Hendershot can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Don’t put this book on your bookshelf, mounted there like some hunter’s head of a deer, to prove you can read. Don’t put this book on the coffee table, turned slightly askance — to be noticeable, so people will know you read poetry. Don’t even take this book to your reading chair where you riffle through Crichton, Frazier or Rash when you can steal a moment. No, take this book outside.

Crack Light is Thomas Rain Crowe’s newest book of poetry, just published by Wind Publishers. Crowe, who lives on John’s Creek in Jackson County in a home that he helped build, is a poet, a translator of poetry, an author of at least 30 books of original and translated works, an editor and publisher (New Native Press) and, more importantly with regards to Crack Light, one who lives in nature. One who admires and respects the natural world and understands the thread that runs through rock and dirt, through trunk and limb, to leaf and sky – through our very essence and connects us all as the umbilical connects the unborn to life.

Take this book to Judaculla Rock or any other petroglyph site and read from “The First Poem:”

“And after the voice of God stopped shouting and began to

sing, words became colors as a form of light —

blue, green, white — even the energy in matter cut loose and

ran for the woods that no one ever went near for fear  

of speaking His name and forever being banished from  

innocence and awe uttered in praise.  

‘Why would anyone want to be a bard?’  

And after he had asked, he went to the woods and  

wrote on the backs of trees and on the heads of rocks  

every shape he knew and could carve with his knife  

now that he had invented words that with his own voice

could sing!”

Take this book to Elkmont in the Smokies on an early June night and read “Fireflies:”

“Like eyes at the edge of the woods:  

the fireflies dance.

Like lonely cabin lamps  

on a ship at sea  

they ride the tide of night  

’round our old mountain homes  

near sleep.  

Who are these little lighthouses in  

the alleys of night?

They are tipis of fire on torches  

where faeries feast and sing.  

Wandering the wood.  

Where wili is Queen.  

Darkness the Fool.  

And moon the mystic King.”

Take this book to Black Balsam Knob at sunrise and read from “Dawn” (for Thomas Berry):

“Even in the evening she dreams of morning  

in her sleep. Of that quiet moment before love  

when creation paused  

at the thought of dawn flooding his face.

When hands become legs and  

bodies become the moving water of sheets  

covering the darkness before the birth of stars.  

Before even the breath of truth  

became flames dancing from the dream  

on fire in a poet’s heart.  

And there was light.”

Crowe collaborated with photographer Simone Lipscome to create Crack Light and her images sing in harmony with the poet’s voice. The poems span decades but, according to Crowe, they all have one thing in common — they’re about place. They’re about this place — the Southern Appalachians, her beauty; her culture; her customs; her people; her poetry.

This book is a must take.

Don Hendershot can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Pandemonium had engulfed Shoal Creek by the time authorities arrived. One fisherman sat, dazed, on a boulder, rocking back and forth, his head in his hands, mumbling, “It was big as a horse – and those pinchers, oh, those pinchers …” as rescue personnel and officers with automatic weapons splashed through the creek to a huge rock where a group of fishermen were splashing and shouting and apparently trying to move the rock.

“What’s going on here?” shouted the officer in charge.

“It’s Frank, here!” cried one of the fishermen, holding another man who was obviously in pain, both legs under the rock, nearly up to his waist. “That thing just grabbed him and started dragging him under the rock.”

Just then a van from Breaux Bridge, La., screeched to a stop along Shoal Creek Road. A group of drooling Cajuns jumped out and pulled a turkey fryer and huge pot out of the back. “Somebody done said dere was one big crawfish here, cher?” asked the driver, a dazed look in his eyes.

OK, OK, I’m exaggerating a little. It may not have been pandemonium but I bet hearts were thumping when University of Illinois biologist, Chris Taylor and Eastern Kentucky University biologist, Guenter Schuster turned over a large rock in Shoal Creek in southern Tennessee and discovered a crayfish twice the size of anything ever seen in the region before.

Serendipity wasn’t what brought Taylor and Schuster to Shoal Creek. Schuster had seen photos of the Shoal Creek monster in 2009. Schuster recognized the critter as a member of the genus Barbicambarus – thought, at the time, to be a monotypic genus – and forwarded the photos to Taylor, whom he had worked with before. A little investigation led them to a specimen that had been collected in Shoal Creek near where the photo had come from, by TVA scientist Jeffery Simmons.

Oh, for the expedition!

Taylor and Schuster thought they were looking for a wayward bottlebrush crayfish, Barbicambarus cornutus. The rare bottlebrush crayfish discovered in 1884, was known from an area in Kentucky, 134 miles away. The biologists figured the crayfish had likely made the trip in some fisherman’s bait bucket or had been moved by someone interested in commercially raising crayfish.

“That’s been going on for 50 years in the U.S., moving species around, so it would not be a surprise if that was the case,” Shuster said.

On the day of the find, Taylor, Schuster and two other biologists had been turning rocks and kicking mud for at least two hours, to no avail and had decided to pack it in when they spied a large flat rock under a bridge. They decided to flip one last rock – and the rest is the beginning of one new chapter in crayfish history.

When they got their new prize back to the lab, they began to notice differences between it and the bottlebrush crayfish. They did DNA sampling and discovered they had an entirely new species of Barbicambarus. They named the crayfish Barbicambarus simmonsi in recognition of TVA scientist Jeffery Simmons, the first person to preserve a specimen of the new species.

The five-inch long B. simmonsi clearly dwarfs the other species of crayfish in Shoals Creek but it, itself, is dwarfed by the almost-lobster sized, nine-inch B. cornutus. Still, B. simmonsi is a creature that would have demanded a second look.

“This isn’t a crayfish that someone would have picked up and just said, ‘Oh, it’s another crayfish,’ and put it back. If you were an aquatic biologist and you had seen this thing, because of the size and the setae [hair-like bristles] on the antennae, you would have recognized it as something really, really different and you would have saved it.”

A sentiment we can empathize with Schuster noted, “We spend millions of dollars every year on federal grants to send biologists to the Amazon, to Southeast Asia – all over the world looking for and studying the biodiversity of those regions. But the irony is that there’s very little money that is actually spent in our own country to do the same thing. And there are still lots of areas right here in the U.S. that need to be explored.”

We here in Western North Carolina need only look to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and its All Taxa Biodiversity Inventory (ATBI) to understand what Schuster is saying. It’s getting harder and harder for scientists to get grant money to do studies in the park, despite the fact that scientist have discovered 6,582 species new to the Park and 907 species new to science – 26 of those new to science are crustaceans including crayfish.

I’ve said it before: “With our ‘Star Trek’ mentality we are poised to go ‘where no man has ever gone.’ We think we are set to probe the nooks and crannies of space.

“Examining shovels full of mud from the GSMNP [or turning stones in Shoal Creek] may not sound as glamorous as going ‘boldly where no man has gone before,’ but the knowledge we stand to gain if the ATBI process is expanded worldwide may have a much more profound effect on human kind.”

Don Hendershot can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Crawl out of your igloo and take a look around. We had kind of assumed a “snow” mentality here at the Hendershot household. A little sledding, a little snow play, then back into the house for hot chocolate, snacks and movies — wet snow clothes draped over a rack near the back door to hopefully dry before they’re donned again for another sortie outside.

We didn’t have it nearly as bad as some of our friends with steep drives on north-facing slopes and no four-wheel drive. We’re close to the four-lane, our road gets plowed and we have four-wheel drive so we were never really housebound.

But there’s something about when the snow starts piling up that turns your attention to the cave. Chores, like making sure the wood box is full, shoveling the sidewalk and shoveling a path to the birdfeeders on the deck take precedence. The veil of falling snow has a way of turning your thoughts inward – but hey, the world is still out there. The beautiful mountains, forests and streams that so many of us cherish are sparkling in their winter finery and the roads are cleared, so gear up and take a look. You’ll definitely want waterproof boots and dress in light but warm layers. A little slogging through the snow can heat you up quickly, but when you stop it’s still chilly out there.

We opted out of cave mode last Sunday for a trip down to DuPont State Forest, between Hendersonville and Brevard. It’s hard to believe that a decade has passed since the rancorous eminent domain battle that transferred the 2,223-acre heart of DuPont State Forest with its dozen or so waterfalls to public lands.

There are several spectacular waterfalls in the area that can be accessed along well-kept trails just minutes from large parking areas along Staton Road. We chose Triple Falls for our destination. Triple Falls can be accessed, even in the snow, with kids, in about 10 minutes from the Hooker Falls parking area. There are convenient steps that take you right to the base of the falls on Little River. There are three distinct cascades with a total vertical drop of 120 feet. The falls, in the snow complete with icicles and 30 feet of spray at the bottom, were stunning. The kids slid on ice, inspected icicles and basically romped in the snow at the bottom of the falls.

The steeper parts of the trail were a bit slippery and that, depending on your perspective (nimble, caution-to-the-wind kid’s or cautious, too-old-to-slide-20-feet-on-your-butt adult’s) was either the coolest thing ever or pause for concern. Dad didn’t have a choice on the descent, in tow by Maddie (5) as she raced her 9-year-old sister, Izzy, down, we “slip-slided” all the way. Mom preferred the tried and true “crab-on-a-tightrope” descent; short, often sideways steps with arms in a graceful arc for balance.

The cool air and exercise put everyone in a restful mood, and while I had company for a while as we traveled U.S. 276 back through the winter wonderland that was the Pisgah National Forest, it wasn’t long after we crested the Blue Ridge Parkway and started our decent to Bethel that I was left alone with my thoughts and three sleeping girls. All in all, it was a great afternoon.

Another debate regarding DuPont is steeping as North Carolina ponders putting the 2,000 or so acres and waterfalls added in 2000 under the jurisdiction of N.C. Division of Parks and Recreation while the remaining acreage will continues under the oversight of the N.C. Division of Forest Resources.

Don Hendershot can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

If there was any lingering doubt that the apocalypse was, indeed, scheduled for 2012, it has been erased. The totally unprecedented death of thousands of birds, tens of thousand (or more) fish and tens of thousands of crabs has been universally accepted — at least by a few bloggers on the Internet — as a sign that now is the time to go ahead and run up those credit card debts.

In fact, while I was waiting for the train from Waynesville to Asheville (man I’ve been waiting a long time) I overheard one guy say that his cousin heard someone say that Pat Robertson said it was evident that the mixed flock of birds falling from the sky in Arkansas was a message from above and that it was an abomination to find mixed species actually roosting together.

Of course, if religious explanations don’t work for you there’s always the gummint. Some enlightened bloggers attribute the deaths to:

“Just go do some research on HAARP [The High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program]. Might be the explanation for the bird and fish deaths reported in Arkansas, Louisiana, Kentucky, and Maryland. Also I read reports that Arkansas experienced tremors before the bird and fish deaths. Which supposedly is another side effect of the HAARP project. Also do some looking into Tesla and his death ray somewhat similar to the HAARP project.”

Or maybe: “There is also the possibility that recent volcanic activity around the globe may have been spewing harsh chemicals into the air that these birds breathed in and died from.”

The list goes on to chemical weapons, aliens and even terrorists:

“After all, we are supposedly at war, and our enemy has made it clear their intent to use biological and chemical weapons. If that is indeed a legitimate threat, doesn’t it make sense to know the truth before shrugging the events off to natural happenstance?” wrote Doug Hagmann in the Canada Free Press.

But if, like me, you’re just gonna stick your head in the sand and believe what scientists and biologists are saying this is all you’re left with.

In Beebe, Ark., on New Year’s Eve blackbirds began falling out of the sky, perhaps as many as 3,000 were found dead. The culprit: Loud explosions, likely associated with New Year’s Eve celebrations disturbed a mega roost of blackbirds and starlings. The birds took to the air, in the dark, where they collided with buildings, power lines, etc. and fell from the sky. All necropsies tested negative for poisons and trauma was the cause of death.

A similar situation occurred in Louisiana a couple of days later — blackbirds rousted from a roost in the dark and flew into structures — trauma was the cause of death.

In Sweden, a couple of days later — dead jackdaws were found in the street. Was it a sign from God? Not unless he drives a lorry (bus), because a lorry driver admitted to driving through a large flock of birds. They were in the road eating the salt and grit from the snowmelt.

Freshwater drum in the Arkansas River likely died from some type of pathogen because no other species of fish was affected. The fish die-offs in the Chesapeake Bay and the crabs in England were due to extremely cold temperatures.

Sadly it happens all the time for a myriad of reasons. Some human induced, some natural causes like when migrating Lapland Longspurs got caught in a storm in Minnesota in 1904 and more than 750,000 died.

I, personally, blame Al Gore for this debacle. If he hadn’t invented the Internet people would have never known about these disparate events.

Don Hendershot can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.