GSMNP Celebrates Fall Harvest with Annual Mountain Life Festival in the Smokies

Every year at mid September the Great Smoky Mountains National Park (GSMNP) hosts the annual Mountain Life Festival at the Mountain Farm Museum adjacent to the Oconaluftee Visitor Center near Cherokee North Carolina This year this popular program will be taking place on Saturday, September 19th, from 10:00 am to 4:00 pm.

This Mountain Life Festival helps preserve the legacy of Appalachian folkways and is meant to be a tribute to the people of European heritage who moved after their land was purchased in order to create the Great Smoky Mountains national park. The event is suitable for all ages and the activities are free.

Besides there being artifacts and historic photographs from the national park’s collection on display, this living history event will include demonstrations on old fashioned life skills such as blacksmithing, lye soap making, food preservation, hearth cooking, apple butter making, and chair bottoming. There will be a music jam session too from 1:00 to 3:00 pm.

One of the highlights of the Mountain Life Festival has been taking place for more than 30 years. The sorghum syrup demonstration, shows how with the use of a horse powered cane mill and a wood-fired cooker syrup is made much the same way it was produced a hundred or more years ago.

For the first time ever the Great Smoky Mountains Association (GSMA) which helps support the park is launching the new Mountain Farm Museum audio tour with free handsets available to visitors and members. There audio tour devices will be distributed for use on a first come first serve basis.

The location where the event take place right of Newfound Gap Road US411 has pretty vistas, a small working farm area with numerous historical structures and a hiking trail along the river which si one of the few places in the GSMNP where you can hike with your dog.

The farm area also contains one of the satellite herds of North American Elk in the Smokies introduced into the area in 2001. Since this is Rut season, male elk are especially active and aggressive so you must keep your distance from them for their safety as well as your own.

The Great Smoky Mountings National Park Is Looking For Volunteers in North Carolina

If you love the Great Smoky Mountains national park, you can give back to the park by becoming a volunteer which is a very rewarding experience.

Presently the GSMNP is looking for volunteers to rove in and around the Oconaluftee Mountain Farm Museum, the Oconaluftee River Trail and along a part of Newfound Gap Road/US441 from now until Nov 9th, 2013.

Volunteers should have knowledge about the park and will be providing information to park visitors such as approaching and disturbing wildlife, littering, historical information and places to go in the park. When necessary, a volunteer will need to assist park rangers with traffic management.

Volunteers will also need to provide visitors with information on viewing elk and other wildlife safely, about the elk reintroduction program in the GSMNP and the elk's role in Great Smoky Mountain National Park.

To participate or for more information, contact the Oconaluftee Visitor Center at (828)497-1904. Volunteers will be required to take an orientation and training session on Friday, April 26 from 10:00 am until 3:00 pm at Oconaluftee.

Great Smoky Mountains National Park Elk Poaching Suspect Confesses and Arrest will be made

This Friday bull elk #21 was shot and killed in the Cataloochee section of the Great Smoky Mountains national park near Maggie Valley NC by what turned out to be a man from Granville County.

Bull elk #21 was 13 years old and one of the first elk moved in the Cataloochee Valley of the Great Smoky Mountains national park in an experimental North American Elk reintroduction program that was to last 4 years but ended up concluding 8 years later.

Bull Elk #21 was born in Elk Island, Canada and spent some time in Land between the Lakes Kentucky before he was released along with 24 other elk in the Cataloochee Valley in 2001.

Bull #21 was a fixture in the valley and always stayed closed by the original field he was released from in contrast to some of the elk which have ended up as far away as Newport Tennessee or Asheville North Carolina.

Often Bull elk #21 would graze in a pasture right by the rangers station with 3 other bull elk buddies we nicknamed the bachelors. This gave our visitors an up close view of a full mature bull elk before they even entered the main fields within the Cataloochee Valley.

During the rut the bachelors would go their separate ways but as of last week since the rut is winding down he was hanging out with his buddies again.

Bull 21 was one of the most dominate bulls in the Cataloochee Valley and his impressive size and huge antlers delighted visitors for years and impressed many of the female elk (called cows) which he collected into a harem and bred.

Even though bull elk #21 was already a grandfather, he was still active during the rut and put on a good show during this years breeding season before he was gunned down.

The picture below was taken October 5th of this year and it shows Bull Elk 21 with his harem in the field by the Beech Gap School in the Cataloochee valley of the Great Smoky Mountains national park.

The shooting took place at close range while he was most likely feeding or just watching the coward who shot him.

Bull elk #21 was found lying down in the field by a park ranger who works in the valley. He collected evidence and worked with the park to transport bull elk #21s body to the UT College of Veterinary Medicine for a necropsy which has yet to come back.

A joint investigation to find the poacher who shot the elk in the Great Smoky Mountains national park was started utilizing Park Rangers, a National Park Service (NPS) Special Agent, and the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission.

The suspected poachers truck description lead the Elk poaching investigation to Granville County. Here the special NPS agent received a confession and additional evidence was gathered.

The U.S. Attorney's Office and the Great Smoky Mountains national park are working together to develop the case so that an arrest can be made at which time the suspects name will be released.

The poacher will face a fine of up to $5,000 and 6 months in jail for the actual poaching and will face losing his truck as well as the weapon he used to commit this crime. It is possible he may face other charges as well for example possession of a loaded weapon inside the National Park which is still illegal until February of 2010.

Park Visitors, National Park employees and Volunteers are all outraged at this heinous crime. Fortunately there are still enough bulls in and around the valley capable of breeding so that the Elk reintroduction program in the Great Smoky Mountains national park will not fail as a result of the loss of bull 21.

Acting Chief Ranger, Steve Kloster stated "The suspect was quickly identified and a strong case developed because of the willingness of members of the community to come forward and talk to Rangers and state wildlife officers."

He went on the say "The many visitors and volunteers who come to Cataloochee expressly to watch the elk constitute a very effective surveillance network which has undoubtedly prevented elk poaching from occurring earlier."

I am proud to be an Elk Bugle Corp Volunteer and when the call is made next spring for more volunteers I hope that we can get even more people who are dedicated and who love nature and the park to come join us and help protect the remainder of the herd.

I would like to thank all of those involved in the investigation for the fine job they had done and thank Park Ranger Mark LaShell, our Parks Elk Specialist: Biologist Joe Yarkovich and the other Bugle Corp members for the outstanding work they do in the valley every day for our Elk Program.

Related Elk in the GSMNP Stories

• Alleged Poacher of Bull Elk 21 in Great Smoky Mountains National Park charged, but is it enough?
• Memorial Fund For Slain Bull Elk #21 to Support the Elk Bugle Corps Volunteer Program
• Great Smoky Mountains National Park Elk Poaching Suspect Confesses and Arrest will be made
• Elk poaching takes place in Cataloochee Valley in the Great Smoky Mountains national park.
• Elk Reintroduction in Great Smoky Mountains National Park
• Great Smoky Mountains National Park needs more Volunteers for Elk Bugle Corp Program

Elk poaching takes place in Cataloochee Valley in the Great Smoky Mountains national park.

Those of you who follow me on Twitter know how near and dear the Elk in the Great Smoky Mountains national park are to me and of course the tens of thousands of other park visitors a year who come to the Cataloochee Valley just to see our elk.

Unfortunately this morning someone well within the national park boundaries in the Cataloochee Valley decided to poach one of our beloved Elk which was one of the first elk released in the park, 13 year old Bull #21 pictured above.

This person who committed this cowardly act not only took this animals life away but took from all of us a magnificent beast. Elk are now able to roam the Great Smoky Mountains which have not heard the bugle of a wild elk for more than 100 years due to over hunting and habitat destruction because of a great investment and time and money from private sources given graciously to the park.

For those of us who love the Great Smoky Mountains national park the elk have become intimately intertwined with this beautiful place since their experiment introduction in 2001 and the herd has grown from 52 head to an estimated 105. The long term prospects for this experimental reintroduction of elk in the Smokies looks fantastic.

Poaching of natural and cultural artifacts is a serious problem in all of our national parks. Poaching in the Great Smoky Mountains national park and the adjoining Blue Ridge Parkway is most commonly to plants such as ramps, ginseng, and wildflowers such as lady slippers as well as wildlife most commonly black bear and deer.

More than 80 park volunteers who love the elk and I work in the Cataloochee Valley of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in a program called the Elk Bugle Corp offering educational information to visitors about the elk and the GSMNP, help with traffic management and work to maintain a safe distance between visitors and our beloved elk and black bear.

So that some good use comes out of this cowardly crime, it would be great if this animal was mounted for display in the new Oconaluftee visitor center being built or the Sugarlands visitor center museum rather than just dump the animal's body after the forensic evidence is gathered to prosecute this criminal. At least people can then see up close one of these magnificent animals we have so much invested in.

I urge anyone who has any information about this or any wildlife crime in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park to call the GSMNP Main Number at park headquarters (865)436-1200.

Related Elk in the GSMNP Stories

• Alleged Poacher of Bull Elk 21 in Great Smoky Mountains National Park charged, but is it enough?
• Memorial Fund For Slain Bull Elk #21 to Support the Elk Bugle Corps Volunteer Program
• Great Smoky Mountains National Park Elk Poaching Suspect Confesses and Arrest will be made
• Elk poaching takes place in Cataloochee Valley in the Great Smoky Mountains national park.
• Elk Reintroduction in Great Smoky Mountains National Park
• Great Smoky Mountains National Park needs more Volunteers for Elk Bugle Corp Program

Great Smoky Mountains National Park needs more Volunteers to assist with the Elk Program

For those of us who love the Great Smoky Mountains national park, nothing feels better than giving back to the place which means so much to us and for locals who live in the Smokies this is your chance as the park still needs more volunteers for the Elk Bugle Corp program.

Probably this first animal that comes to mind when you think about the Great Smoky Mountains national park is our beloved black bear which has been a visitor favorite since the GSM national parks formation 75 years ago.

North American Elk used to freely roam the Smoky Mountains until the 1800's where they were hunted to extinction, but thanks the Friends of the Smokies and other conservation groups between 2001 and 2002 a total of 52 North American Elk were reintroduced into the Cataloochee Valley of the Great Smoky Mountains national park.

The park service is looking for volunteers to join the Elk Bugle Corps to assist park rangers by giving park visitors information on the elk as well as responsible elk viewing practices and to help with parking and traffic management in the Cataloochee Valley.

Additional Volunteers are needed to help from May to November and work for at least 2 scheduled, four hour shifts per month. Help is especially needed on day shifts from 1 pm to 5 pm through the summer.

Anyone interested in joining the Elk Bugle Corp should call Mark LaShell the Cataloochee Park Ranger at (828) 269-3161 for training which will be held tomorrow at the Palmer Barn from 10 am to 4 pm. Volunteers are asked to bring their own lunch as there are no facilities at the park.

Related Elk in the GSMNP Stories

• Great Smoky Mountains National Park Elk Poaching Suspect Confesses and Arrest is Emanate
• Elk poaching takes place in Cataloochee Valley in the Great Smoky Mountains national park.
• Elk Reintroduction in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park
• Great Smoky Mountains National Park needs more Volunteers for Elk Bugle Corp Program

When the Elks rut in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park

The 2008 Elk Rut season is already starting in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and the best place to see the the elk in the national park is still the Cataloochie Valley near Maggie Valley North Carlina.

While elks make their distinctive calls called bugling throughout the year, now is when it picks up in intensity as well as the male bull elk forming harems of as many females cows as possible.

The bugling sound the elk make can be heard from quite a distance echoing in the Cataloochee Valley and fields. The bugling sound is very distinctive as its call raises in pitch and volume until the almost grunt turns into screech followed by a short series of grunts.

Watching elk grunt and bugling as dawn is breaking and they come out of the fog as it lifts from the Cataloochee Valley. You can see the moisture vapor coming out of the elks mouth as they bugle breaking the morning silence. Moments or minutes later far in the distance you start to hear the other elks bugle as they each call out their territory.

Elk during rut experience ranging hormones and have already shed their velvet from their antlers which from into huge racks. Their mating habit included urinating on the ground and scratching up the ground with their antlers and then rolling in the urine soaked ground to absorb the scent. Standing far from them you can smell their unbelievable pungent odor.

Male bull elk at this time are working on forming a harem of cows herding and gathering them to hopefully mate. Unfortunately for the bull elk at this time the cows are not ready or willing to mate adding to the elk's frustrations and further increasing its aggressiveness as it spars with other male elks for wives and territory.

Watching the elk battle and the individual elk gain and lose members from their harem is fascinating and is like watching members of a professional sport team play and since all of the large elk are tagged with numbers so it's easy to keep score. I can assure you if you watch them for 3 days straight you will be amazed at the conquests and loses - reversals and fumbles - all in the beauty of the Cataloochee valley.

Elk at this time of the year are particularly aggressive and can present far more of a threat to the human visitors of the Great Smoky Mountains national park which should keep their distance - especially when the elk are sparring with each other. Park volunteers called the Bugle Corps patrol up and down the road educating park visitors and trying to have visitors stay the recommended distance away from the elk.

The elk are best viewed early in the day and starting an hour or so before sunset. They can be often seen right from the roadside. It gets packed on weekends with visitors and locals alike so during the week is the best time to come to Cataloochee.

I implore anyone who comes to observe the spectacle to pull to the side of the road and shut off your engines! Not only will you save gas, you will allow other to hear or record the wonderful sound of the elks bugle instead of your car idling.

Since the elk population has doubled since the elk introduction back into the Great Smoky Mountains national park their amazing behavior will soon be able to be observed in other areas of the GSMNP that elk gather, namely in the small fields along Newfound Gap Road just north of the Oconaluftee visitors center and south of Smokemont.

While some see this population and range expansion as a good thing, I see this as a management nightmare brewing. As I have stated before numerous times it would have been best of the elk population was confined to the Cataloochee and Balsam Mountain areas and if the park service let the local black bear help thin the herd rather than capturing and moving black bear in the spring when the elk give birth.

Enjoy the elk in the Great Smoky Mountains national park - but please - from a safe distance!

Elk in the Great Smoky Mountains national park: wild, beautiful but dangerous.

Elk have been extinct in the Tennessee and North Carolina Smoky Mountains for more than 100 years, but thanks to private funding Elk have been reintroduced in the Great Smoky Mountain national park in 2001.

These majestic animals were reintroduced into the Cataloochee section of the Great Smoky Mountain national park in North Carolina near Maggie Valley, but since Elk don't understand park boundaries they have wandered out of the safety of Cataloochee's valleys and fields and have spread into other areas of North Carolina and Tennessee.

Elk can commonly be seen along the roadside near the construction area on Big Cove Road in Cherokee North Carolina and north of the Blue Ridge Parkway along the side of the road on 441 Newfound Gap Road by the Oconaluftee visitor center in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

I have been told that the elk have now been spotted as far away as the Greenbrier section of the Great Smoky Mountains national park a short walking distance from the city limits of Gatlinburg Tennessee.

Elk are very large unpredictable wild animals that can easily seriously injure or kill someone without warning. Elk have no concept of park borders nor do they understand that foolish people walking up close to them with young children are offering no real threat to these wild animals, they just want to take a picture of them.

This picture above shows 2 adults walking within 50 feet of an elk lying down in the grass off Newfound Gap Road yesterday. This is the time of year when young elk calves have been just been born and are commonly hidden in grass away from predators. If there is an elk calf in the grass near this bull elk, anyone approaching the young calve could have been killed.

Since this Elk is a male and the calves are generally in the Cataloochee valleys and hills chances are there are no calves in the grass near Newfound Gap Road but these visitors had no idea of the elks habit.

The wife of the man on the left was excusing her husbands illegal and extremely foolish behavior claiming there are no posted warnings. When she was advised by me of the danger her children and her husband are in and the fact that her husband can be fined, she never asked her husband or children to back away from the Elk. She also told me what he was doing was ok because the park rangers who just arrived did not tell her husband what he was doing was wrong.

There were in fact no park rangers there but a male and female park volunteer than just got off work at the Oconaluftee Visitor Center. They just stood there at the roadside and watched as people walked down off the roadside and went into the field to approach the wild animal.

When showing this and other photographs which clearly showed how close these park visitors were to the Elk to the volunteer he seemed disinterested.

As the traffic situation for the elk jam was getting worse I asked the park volunteer to radio or call in order to get an enforcement officer to the scene to protect the park visitors from their foolish behavior and work on keeping traffic flowing. He begrudgingly complied.

The Great Smoky Mountains national park Elk population has more than doubled since their reintroduction and unless better management practice are put in place and people behave responsibly - people with get injured if not die as a result of a man versus elk encounter.

It is time that the public and the park service wake up. The elk do belong in the park - this was their territory, and we as guests of the national park must behave in a personally responsible manor to protect ourselves for our own and the elks safety.

As for Elk outside of the park, this will become a more serious issue as time goes on and there will be elk versus traffic and elk versus human encounters increase along with the elk population expansion.

The area that the elk were to be introduced in needed to be set up as to safely contain the elk via physical barriers and the lack of such barriers will bite the National Park Service in the butt when the wrongful death and wrongful injury lawsuits start to occur.

Great Smoky Mountains National Park Elk need your help!

The Great Smoky Mountains national parks largest resident is the Elk who were reintroduced in 2001 after being extinct in the wilds of the North Carolina and Tennessee Smoky Mountains due to over hunting for more than a century.

The National Parks Park Volunteers-in-Parks program is now seeking volunteers who are able to assist the staff by helping provide visitors to the park with information, help in traffic control of tourists coming to see the elk and making sure that visitors coming to the park are not antagonizing the elk by approaching them too closely, shining lights at them or using bugles to simulate their mating call all prohibited activities.

This new Great Smoky Mountains National Park Volunteer program is going by the name Elk Bugle Corps referring to the sound the elk mate during rutting when the male bull elk bugle and spar in dominance battles with one another.

The elk are primarily in project in the North Carolina Cataloochee Valley section although strays wander to as far as the Oconaluftee visitor center and further. The Volunteers are needed for the Cataloochee Valley from May 25th through November 19th which are peak elk viewing times and see the most visitors to this section of the National Park looking for Elk.

Late springtime mean calving for the elk where new mother at times leave their calves alone in fields which can be an invitation to disaster if curious person comes along and an irate mother elk returns to her young to see humans close by.

The rutting season is a fantastic time to watch and listen to the elk, but it is also a time when this huge potentially dangerous animal is more agitated.

The park needs volunteers who can help from 5:45 pm - 8:45 pm who can sign up for either a particular day of the week or a whole week at a time. The most help is needed on weekends.

If you are interested in helping the magnificent creatures call the Great Smoky Mountains National Park's Volunteer Coordinator at (865) 436-1265 by May 7 to receive an information packet and on May 17 and 19 there will be a Bugle Corps volunteer training session.

National Park Service will start a prescribed burn in Cataloochee North Carolina section of the National Park February 24th 2007

I would suggest if you are visiting the Great Smoky Mountains National Park this weekend that you avoid the Cataloochee NC area because of the smoke, partial road closures, fire fighting equipment and fire personal needed to help restore both pine and Oak woodlands.

Fire can pose a huge danger to the parks inhabitants, historical building, neighboring farms and homes because an uncontrolled fire in the wild can spread like - well - wildfire. Because of this National Parks and state parks and forests have been suppressing forest fires for years.

Unfortunately a natural environment needs fires to maintain a healthy balance and the forests, valleys, fields and woodlands of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park is no exception.

Fires can clear old vegetation, open tree canopies to allow more sunlight to reach the forest floor allowing more bio diversity. Some plants such as some pine trees have seeds that won't germinate unless exposed to heat created by fire. Different species of trees and bushes have different flammability factors and thus a fast burning fire may burn and kill some plants while other plants which are more fire tolerant may not be affected.

Since natural and accidental forest fires have been suppressed for more than 60 years in the Smoky Mountains, some species of tress such as maple trees which have a low fire tolerance, have spread quickly, dominated habitats and have taken over what was traditionally a xeric oak forest community in the Smokies. Along with the black oak, scarlet oak, and chestnut oaks a fire tolerant xeric oak forest community also has hickory trees a staple wood of locally made Smoky Mountains furniture.

The national park service is planning to burn a 530 acre area in the forest of the Cataloochee Valley this weekend in an effort to help in the restoration of both pine and oak woodlands. Oak woodlands are crucial to the survival of black bears in the Smokies as their diet largely consists of acorns and bears commonly use oak trees in order to den. The new habitat and additional forage created by this prescribed burn will also benefit the Elk that have been introduced into the Great Smoky Mountains national park.

Surprisingly this is not the first time that this area has been intentionally burned by the NPS. The same area had a prescribed burn treatment in April of 2004 and more treatments will be needed in order to completely restore the xeric oak forest habitat.

In order to help keep the fire under control that area where the prescribed burn is to take place is bordered an established fire control line, 2 wet drainages, a road, and grassy meadowland all of which borders the open meadows of Cataloochee at the western end of the Cataloochee Valley.

You will also find up to 25 Park firefighters and 2 fire engines will be in the area to keep the fire under control with some fire personnel helping to escort hikers to trails that remain open.

Still insist on going to Cataloochee NC this weekend?

The following areas will be closed:

• The road from Shanty Branch to the Rough Fork Trailhead in Cataloochee Valley
• The Hiram Caldwell Cemetery

The following will remain open:

• Rough Fork Trail
• Big Fork Ridge Trail
• Dock Caldwell Cemetery (E of Shanty Branch)

My suggestion is stay away from this section of the GSMNP and let the National Park Service do their job. There is plenty to see and do in other sections of the park.