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Joanna Pecha
Deer
Out-of-control deer populations are threatening rare plant species in Virginia; parkway staff are implementing exclosures to protect plants. Photo by Joanna Pecha.
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Joanna Pecha
Indian Pipe
Following warm summer rains, Indian pipe emerges from the forest floor. A mutualistic relationship with wood-rotting fungi allows Indian pipe to survive without chlorophyll.
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Joanna Pecha
Harbor Sundew
Some of the parkway’s 300 seeps harbor sundew, a small carnivorous plant whose sticky, sweet secretions and reddish hue attract small insects. When an insect touches the plant, its sticky hairs roll toward the victim, trapping it.
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Joanna Pecha
Deer
Out-of-control deer populations are threatening rare plant species in Virginia; parkway staff are implementing exclosures to protect plants. Photo by Joanna Pecha.
An anything-but-exhaustive sampling of ways the parkway is protecting parkway biodiversity…
Poaching
What they're doing: Patrolling and spatter painting.
When a man emerged from the woods with a backpack and muddy knees at Peaks of Otter last year, an alert law enforcement officer stopped and asked what he'd been doing. "Taking pictures of wildflowers," he answered. When the officer asked to see the camera and photos, the man opened his backpack. Out tumbled rare plants he'd been poaching to send back to the nursery he ran in the UK. Poaching rare, unusual and medicinal plants is an issue, but the biggest problem, in terms of volume and value, is harvesting galax leaves for the florist trade. To keep galax safe, parkway employees and volunteers are spattering large patches with orange water-based paint that renders the leaves unsellable but doesn't harm the plants. (Want to help? Call parkway volunteer coordinator Shawn Rhodes, 828-271-4779, extension 242 to sign on.)
Protecting Carolina Northern Flying Squirrel Populations
What they're doing: Managing vistas
Visitors love open vistas that provide panoramic views, but where the parkway passes through Carolina northern flying squirrel territory, the parkway has taken a look at the ways it maintains vistas. "Vistas usually involve clearcutting one-quarter to one-half an acre to keep views open," says parkway biologist Bob Cherry. To help the endangered creatures survive, the parkway is altering some vistas by reducing their size (without impairing the view) and, in others, is leaving stands of spruce, since the squirrels subsist on a fungus that grows in spruce forests. As the trees grow, the stands will be thinned, leaving trees close enough together to allow squirrels to glide from one to another, which will help protect them from predators.
White-Tailed Deer
What they're doing: Building exclosures
White-tailed deer are impacting rare plant species in Virginia. The swamp pink, for instance, sends up a three-foot flower stalk "that is deer candy. The deer also love eating lilies and orchids," says parkway plant ecologist Chris Ulrey. He protects swamp pinks by enclosing the plants in wire hoop structures that prevent deer from nipping off the flowers. But adverse effects from out-of-control deer populations aren't limited to rarities. At Peaks of Otter, the location on the parkway where the deer are having the most impact, Ulrey conducted a deer exclosure experiment. After five years, he says, "vegetation inside the exclosure was lush; outside, the ground was barren. As a botanist I can tell you that deer are having an impact on vegetation in Virginia."
Trampling Rare Plants on Rock Outcrops
What they're doing: Closing off sensitive areas to foot traffic, reestablishing plant populations
In an effort to keep parkway visitors on trails and off rare plants on rock outcrops and beyond rock walls, the parkway has installed boardwalks and added signage in several areas, among them Devil's Courthouse, Craggy Pinnacle and Rough Ridge (on the Tanawha Trail – map here PDF ). Where rare plants were being dislodged by rock climbers, the parkway has closed the area to climbing. For mountain avens and Heller's blazing star, Ulrey collected seed and grew plants in a greenhouse; reintroduction sometimes required rappelling.
Keeping Forest Pests at Bay
What They're Doing: Screening, monitoring, treating
For Emerald Ash Borer: This beetle has not yet invaded parkway forests (it's in coastal Virginia though) and parkway personnel want it to stay that way. "The danger," Ulrey says, "is that it moves around on firewood and many parkway campers bring firewood with them." The parkway is attempting to screen campers who come from states with emerald ash borer quarantines, asking them to burn firewood they have brought with them immediately, and has hung pheromone traps in campgrounds, as part of a national effort.
For Gypsy Moth: The gypsy moth is spreading slowly south and west. Long a presence on the parkway in Virginia, it has reached the state line. "It's a matter of time before it shows up in Western North Carolina," he says. "We are monitoring abundance; when populations pass a certain threshold, we take action." The forest service's "Slow the Spread" program (which uses aerial delivery of mating disruptors, biocontrols or pesticides, depending on the level of infestation) has helped prevent the moth from advancing quickly into new areas.
For Hemlock Woolly Adelgid: The parkway has been treating Carolina and eastern hemlocks using chemical soil injections on a three-year rotation, with the greatest concentration of treatment between Linville Falls and Grandfather Mountain, although it is also treating surviving hemlocks at Peaks of Otter, at the Basin Cove campsite in Doughton Park (info in pdf here), and the Cone Estate. About 10 percent of the treated trees have died, probably because of drought, but last year's wet season helped greatly. The injections are paying off to the extent that "some of the Linville Falls trees are beginning to look normal. We don't want to be treating hemlocks every three years forever, but any hemlocks we see that are still hanging on, we're treating."