Outdoors
NC Wildlife Resources Commission director to retire
After 34 years of service to the state of North Carolina, Cameron Ingram, executive director of the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission (NCWRC), has announced his retirement effective Dec. 31, 2024. Ingram has served as NCWRC executive director since August 2020.
WNC Mountain State Fair winners bring home hardware
The following are winners in the N.C. Mountain State Fair’s opening weekend poultry, rabbit, sheep, goat and beef cattle categories from the Smoky Mountain News coverage area:
Doing battle with the world's deadliest animal: WCU researchers join the fight against mosquito-borne diseases
Sure, mosquitos are an important link in the food chain for amphibians, birds and other insects, but they’re annoying, they’re persistent and they can actually kill you. Two researchers at Western Carolina University are working on a faster, cheaper, more reliable method to identify which ones will.
Up Moses Creek: Walking the log
I’d no sooner opened my book of Robert Frost’s poetry to start the morning right when Neighbor J drove up. A wind had downed trees in his pasture, and he was sawing one up when his chainsaw had gotten pinched — “Can you help me get it out?” A “pinch” happens when the tree trunk suddenly sags or shifts, clamping the saw bar tight in the kerf like gigantic wooden jaws.
Volunteers needed for the ‘Big Sweep’ stream cleanup
Haywood Waterways is calling for volunteers to take part in a county-wide cleanup event that removes tons of trash from local waterways and roadways.
GSMNP employees receive education award
A team of Great Smoky Mountains National Park employees was recently awarded the 2023 Excellence in Education Award at a National Park Service awards ceremony in Washington D.C. Many of the agency’s top awards were presented at the 2023 National Service Awards ceremony.
Smokies spenders pump billions into local economies
A new National Park Service report shows that 13,297,647 visitors to Great Smoky Mountains National Park in 2023 spent $2.2 billion in communities near the park. That spending supported 33,748 jobs in the local area and had a cumulative benefit to the local economy of $3.4 billion.
Word from the Smokies: Dedicated Smokies volunteer force protects elk and people
At 3:30 p.m., traffic flows smoothly along U.S. 441 past the Oconaluftee Visitor Center. The 80-some elk living in this area of Great Smoky Mountains National Park are still invisible beneath the forest canopy as the sun shines bright and warm.
The Joyful Botanist: Rowan on a mountain
At the higher elevations in the Southern Appalachian Mountains grows a special and sacred tree whose red berries glow in the full sun against a clear blue-sky. Steeped in folklore and traditions brought by European settlers and colonizers, the sight of the rowan tree (Sorbus americanus) must have filled the hearts of Scotch and Irish descendants with nostalgia for home.
