The Naturalist's Corner

Invited for tea

I opened the door around 7 a.m. last Saturday and spring hit me square in the face. Actually a cold misty breeze hit me square in the face but I got an earful of spring. “Drink your tea – ea-ea-ea-ea!” wailed an eastern towhee from the brambles at the edge of my yard.

Now chickadees have been singing and so have Carolina wrens and cardinals and some song sparrows’ teakettles have started to boil. But these troubadours are likely to loosen up their vocal chords anytime during the winter if we get a couple of warm sunshiny days. And while you may hear an emphatic and prolonged “drrriinnkk” or “driinnkk teaaa” or “tea-ea-ea” from a wintertime towhee, the bawdy, lascivious, full-throated “Drink your tea-ea-ea-ea-ea!” is generally reserved for karaoke night at the local singles bar after a long cold winter.

Towhees in the yard aren’t the only signs of spring.

A walk around Lake Junaluska last Thursday produced 20-plus tree swallows. An unidentified shorebird was also observed at the lake. I didn’t have binoculars and the distance was too great and the lighting too bad to make out more than a silhouette working the edge of the small channel that’s left in the middle of the lake. The bird was foraging like a sandpiper and from its size and posture, I would guess pectoral.

Pectorals are early migrants and commonly seen around the lake in migration when it’s drawn down. Wayne Forsythe reported pectorals along with American golden plovers, killdeers, horned larks and American pipits along Hooper Lane in Henderson County last Sunday.

Birds aren’t the only winged harbingers of spring. Butterflies are being reported across the region. Question marks and mourning cloaks have been reported from Kingsport, Tenn. And mourning cloaks have also been reported from Catawba County. Of course one look up at the red maple buds should clue you in that the brown leaf litter will soon be parting as the green shoots of trout lily, bloodroot, toothwort, trailing arbutus and other spring ephemerals claw their way to sunshine.

This is not to say that Ma Nature won’t dust us with another snow or two. I remember back in April 2005 when I was surveying for migrants at Balsam Mountain Preserve. It was 30 degrees, snowing, and some places had half an inch of the white stuff on the ground. But when I could find sheltered places out of the wind, early migrants like northern parula warblers, blackburnian warblers, black-and-white warblers, blue-headed vireos and rose-breasted grosbeaks were singing in the snow. So go ahead and fire up your teapot because before you know it, it will be time to sit on your deck and “Drink your tea-ea-ea-ea-ea!”

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

The Naturalist's Corner

White Nose Syndrome just miles from WNC

The Tennessee Wildlife Resource Agency (TWRA) announced in mid-February that two bats from Worley’s cave had tested positive for White Nose Syndrome (WNS).

The cave, officially designated Morrell Cave by the U.S. Board on Geographical Names in 1980 but more commonly known as Worley’s or Morril’s cave, is located just southeast of Bluff City, Tenn., only about an hour and a half from Asheville.

Two tri-colored bats (formerly eastern pipistrelle) tested positive for the fungus (Geomyces destructans). While scientists are still not one hundred percent sure that the fungus is the sole causative agent, bat-to-bat-transmission of the fungus has been observed.

Whatever the cause, the malaise is clearly catastrophic. Mortality in some affected hibernacula has exceeded 90 percent. It is estimated that somewhere between one-half million and one million bats have succumbed to WNS, including at least 25,000 endangered Indiana bats.

Six species of bats — Indiana bat, little brown bat, big brown bat, northern long-eared bat, small-footed bat and tri-colored bat (formerly eastern pipistrelle) — are known to be susceptible to WNS.

Tennessee joins New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Vermont, Massachusetts, West Virginia and Virginia to become the tenth state to document WNS. Worley’s cave is the most southern and most western site, to date, where WNS has been recorded. The cave is only about 65 miles from known infected sites in Virginia.

But the prospect of further western and/or southern spread is a scary prospect for biologists and bat fanciers. Tennessee may have more caves than any state in the nation and a single cave in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park is a hibernaculum for nearly nine percent of the total estimated population of endangered Indiana bats.

•••

And now for things that make you go hmmmmm....

You and I and all the taxpayers across this great land have paid about $14 million for ivory-billed woodpecker conservation since 2005. Never mind the fact that not one ivory-billed woodpecker has been conclusively documented since the late 1930s early 1940s.

Bat researchers are overjoyed that the Obama administration has secured $1.9 million in funding for the study of WNS. Maybe if we glued feathers to their wings and took fuzzy videos, we could get some dollars to study this devastating disease.

Wait a minute! That would be forethought — what am I thinking?

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

The Naturalist's Corner

Bird’s the word

North Carolina’s state parks and Audubon North Carolina have joined together to celebrate the “Year of the Birds” in 2010.

Birds grab our attention. Just ask my wife, who discovered, unexpectedly, the other afternoon that the Carolina wren that nests in her clothespin basket every spring also roosts there in cold weather. I’m sure if someone took the time to translate her hastily shouted expletive it would be, “My goodness, you surprised me! I didn’t expect to find such a beautiful fluttery creature in my basket this time of year.” And nothing says spring quite like the first shiny black, white and crimson rose-breasted grosbeak that shows up at our feeder on that sunny April morning.

In fact, a 2009 U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service report estimated one of every five Americans is a “bird-watcher,” defined as someone who took a trip of at least one mile for the primary purpose of observing birds, or someone who closely observed and tried to identify birds around their home. These enthusiasts contributed $36 billion to the national economy in 2006, according to the report.

But for many around the world, across the country and here in the Old North State whose avocation is protecting and preserving our natural environment, this palpable connection between man and bird means much more than a business opportunity.

Chris Canfield, executive director of Audubon North Carolina, talked about the creation of “Year of the Birds.”

“Our partnership with N.C. State Parks began when I was asked to speak to a gathering of superintendents. I asked staff here to analyze what parklands overlapped with our Important Bird Areas program. As it turned out, about 100,000 acres of the parks, more than half of the park holdings at the time were in IBAs or potential IBAs. Lew Ledford [Lewis Ledford, director North Carolina state parks] and I put our heads together and realized we had so many common goals — expanding parks, heightening environmental awareness among the public, documenting the value of parklands for birds and other wildlife. So we committed to working together. The NC Birding Trail was one excellent outcome that grew, in part, out of that commitment. The Year of the Birds is the latest public expression of the power of both parks and birds to connect people to nature. For me, and I know for many others, noticing the birds inhabiting an area is central to my understanding of that place. Our state parks hold some of the most cherished landscapes in North Carolina, and they provide wonderful venues for the public to explore nature, including looking for the birds emblematic of each location.”

For more information regarding the Year of the Birds go to http://nc.audubon.org/news-events/north-carolina-state-parks-declares-2010-year-birds.

To find out about Year of the Birds programs in your area contact Curtis Smalling, important bird areas coordinator and mountain program manager at Audubon North Carolina, by email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or by phone at 828.265.0198.

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

The Naturalist's Corner

The good; the bad and the ugly

The good

Ben Morrison, compiler of the Wilmot, Ohio, Christmas Bird Count, contacted the Ohio Birds Records Committee and provided documentation for the purple martin I wrote about in the Jan. 20 Naturalist’s Corner. According to Gabe Leidy, compiler of the Ohio rare bird reports, the record is sure to be accepted.

A single purple martin lounging in Ohio in the winter surely has little species-wide implications from an ornithological perspective but these little tidbits offer a glimpse into “the secret lives” of birds. We tend to lump all other creatures into groups like cows, bears, dogs, deer, chickens, hawks, etc. We forget that all species, like homo sapiens, are composed of individuals with individual stories.

No one knows why that particular female martin missed her flight to South America. She showed up in Apple Creek in August with a late fledgling. Perhaps her mothering instinct was stronger than her migrating instinct. Or perhaps she was simply old and weary and not up to another long rigorous migration. We will never know why. But because of conscientious birders and dedicated compilers we do know that from August 2009 to Jan. 10, 2010, one female martin stayed in Apple Creek, Ohio aided and abetted by one Atlee Yoder who tossed meal worms into the air to nourish her.

Yoder wasn’t responding to the needs of purple martins as a species. His individual story was touched by the individual story of this one little bird, and that’s a good thing.

The bad

Another avian vagabond showed up this winter in Georgia — an ivory gull, the first ever recorded for Georgia, appeared in late January at West Point Dam. While this snow-white Arctic denizen thrilled birders and provided many photo ops, it unfortunately met an agonizing end. It died from what was reported as an “apparent” predator attack.

But there were reports on the Georgia listserv of would be photographers talking of throwing rocks at the reluctant bird in order to get shots of it in flight. It leaves one to wonder if an errant rock could have caused the “apparent” predator injuries.

Other bad bird news is emanating from south Louisiana where (as of Feb. 3) more than 100 snow geese have been found dead in grain fields. The geese are thought to have died from aflatoxicosis contracting from ingesting contaminated grain.

Louisiana Wildlife official and biologists are closely monitoring the situation hoping to avoid a repeat of 1999 when more than 10,000 snow geese perished due to aflatoxicosis.

The ugly

Just when you thought the ivory-billed woodpecker would be left to slide back into the mossy hearts and hopes of dyed-in-the-wool believers, reports of photos have surfaced once again.

This whole dubious, sordid and convoluted tale has been and is still playing out over the Internet. One good place to catch up on it is at http://ivorybills.blogspot.com.

Suffice it to say — still no definitive evidence.

And now a brief senior moment report. Thanks to DeLene Beeland at http://sciencetrio.wordpress.com for pointing out that in last week’s column regarding the red wolf talk at the Folk Art Center, I referred to the red wolf as Canis lupus (grey wolf) rather than C. rufus.

This also gives me a chance to mention that last Saturday’s program was cancelled due to the weather, and rescheduled for Sunday, Feb. 21, at 2 p.m. For info, call 828.298.5600, ext. 308, or e-mail This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

The Naturalist's Corner

On the road to recovery

Friends of the Western North Carolina Nature Center unveils its New Winter Speaker Series on native animals at the Folk Art Center at 10:30 a.m. on Saturday, Feb. 6. Asheville native Warren Parker, retired chief Endangered Species Biologist with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and the Service’s first national director of the Red Wolf Species Survival program, will talk about the nuts and bolts of this reintroductory program.

The program, “The Red Wolf Survives” is free to members of Friends of the WNC Nature Center. A $5 contribution to Friends is suggested at the door for non-members. The Folk Art Center is located at mile marker 382 on the Blue Ridge Parkway in east Asheville. Please RSVP to Friends executive director Sarah Oram by February 5 at 828.298.5600 ext. 308 or at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. with your name and the number in your party.

If there ever was a “friend in need,” Canis lupus, was (is) one. Before widespread settlement, this iconic top-of-the-food-chain predator was abundant in southern bottomland hardwood forests from the Atlantic Seaboard to central Texas and Oklahoma, northward to the Ohio River Valley. By the 1970s, because of human encroachment and persecution, the red wolf had been extirpated from all of its former range, save the bayous, cheniers and marshes of southeastern Texas and southwestern Louisiana.

The passage of the Endangered Species Act in December of 1973 gave the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service the leverage and clout to act. Parker, as chief endangered species biologist, helped orchestrate an audacious and ambitious recovery plan that called for trapping wild red wolves for a captive breeding program.

North Carolina has figured prominently in this program. A reintroductory program at Alligator River National wildlife Refuge was begun in 1987. This successful program has spilled over to other refuges and public lands in northeastern North Carolina and today between 100 and 120 red wolves — the only population of wild red wolves in the world — call North Carolina home.

The WNC Nature Center is one of only 40 captive red wolf breeding sites in the country. On Cinco de Mayo (May 5, 2009,) a red wolf pup, appropriately named Mayo, was born to Rufus and Angel, two Louisiana red wolves on loan to WNC Nature Center from the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. Mayo will remain at the nature center and continue to be a part of the captive breeding pool of red wolves.

This is sure to be a fascinating program about a fascinating animal by one who helped formulate and implement this groundbreaking protocol.

The Naturalist's Corner

And the dam - came tumblin’ tumblin’

The Dillsboro Dam story is as twisted and convoluted as the Tuck itself. You had Jackson County commissioners who made property rights one of the underpinnings of their election campaigns voting in favor of eminent domain to wrest the dam out of Duke’s hands. You had one recently elected commissioner trying to get the county to drop its lawsuit, who, while a member of another county board, said Duke wasn’t doing nearly enough and that if they didn’t do more, lawsuits would be filed.

Current Jackson County Chairman Brian McMahan called the Tuckasegee River Cooperative Stakeholder process flawed and commissioner Joe Cowan called it a farce. Both are right and wrong to some extent. The process was flawed to the exact extent that stakeholders did not come informed and prepared to play hardball with Duke.

The process was never a farce. Duke was using all angles and all available resources to get the best relicensing agreement it could get. Agencies like U.S. Fish and Wildlife, North Carolina Division of Water Quality, North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission and other agencies that have actual relicensing authority were there to let Duke know they had concerns. In a traditional relicensing process, these entities and Duke would have been locked behind closed door until time for public comment.

Cowan was also quoted in the Sylva Herald as saying, “... I know they’re [Duke] in cahoots with the whitewater people ...” I imagine this is reference to some of the concessions garnered by American Whitewater through the stakeholders’ process.

American Whitewater was the one stakeholder group, with no licensing authority, who had done their homework and had a game plan and was dedicated to it. And they received concessions from Duke. Sadly the county and other participants were not so well prepared.

And remember, any and all stakeholders could have and should have come armed to the teeth. The worst that could have happened would have been for them to be asked to leave the stakeholder meetings. In which case they would’ve had the avenue to become interveners, as Jackson County and others did as the FERC process moved forward. But all that is water over the dam, so to speak.

The dam is coming down, so what does that mean for the river? According to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, there are 11 species of fish found in the nearly mile-long impounded reservoir behind the dam. The stretch of river immediately below the dam has 38 species of fish. The river above the impounded reservoir has 24 species of fish.

The federally endangered elktoe mussel is found below the impoundment and above it. Removal of the dam will help reconnect these populations and expand the overall range of this endangered animal. The imperiled sicklefin redhorse is also found below the dam and removal of the dam will allow the sicklefin to extend its range upriver. A U.S. Fish & Wildlife report states, “Restoring the reservoir to a free-flowing river will make this portion of the river usable to a suite of native fish and other aquatic animals,” and that’s good news.

The Sylva Herald report noted a “conciliatory” tone among commissioners with reference to Duke and the dam. It’s worth a try. With adequate funding, the land alongside the river in Dillsboro could make a beautiful riverside park. And maybe they could talk Duke into dropping a couple of giant boulders in the river there so T.J. Walker’s Dillsboro Inn could enjoy the nice rippling sound of the river without having to view the debris atop the dam.

And let me say that I totally concur with Cowan and other Duke dissers that say Duke is not doing all it could or should. But sadly it’s a sign of the times. Cowan mentioned that Duke was not being a “good corporate neighbor.” I submit that, in these socio-economic times, good corporate neighbor is an oxymoron.

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

The Naturalist's Corner

And then there were none

Atlee Yoder’s purple martin houses are in storage, out of the raw Ohio weather, awaiting spring and the first scout of the new season. But herein lies the rub — Yoder’s houses did not come down until last week.

Yoder, an Amish farmer from Apple Creek in the heart of Ohio’s Amish Country is, like many of his Amish neighbors who eschew most of our modern contrivances and conveniences, quite partial to these organic bug zappers.

Last August just as Yoder’s breeding colony was departing for the balmy climes of South America, a female martin with a late fledgling showed up at his houses. Being neighborly, Yoder left his houses up and the birds stayed — and stayed. September passed, then October and finally in November the fledgling disappeared. But the adult female lingered.

According to posts from the Purple Martin Conservation Association’s Web site forum and their Facebook site and from Ohio birds listserv, the female martin stayed until Jan. 10, 2010. Reports say that Yoder fed the bird on Jan. 10 by tossing mealworms into the air for her to catch as he had been doing for the last month or so. According to those reports the bird appeared healthy at that time, but failed to reappear the next day, or the next and thus appeared to have flown the coop.

And now for the official disclaimer — a purple martin overwintering anywhere in the U.S. should be big news for birders in general and the ornithological community in particular, yet documentation of this bird is sparse and sometimes contradictory. I have no reason to doubt Su Snyder’s (a member of the Greater Mohican Audubon Society) photo, which she so graciously provided for this story but other pieces of the story are puzzling.

According to the Ohio listserv the bird was supposedly reported on the Wilmot, Ohio, Christmas Bird Count. But when I go to Audubon’s Web site and pull up that particular CBC there is no mention of a purple martin. But then the bird is mentioned in a Dec. 22, 2009, Ohio statewide “rare bird alert.”

I have emailed a member of the Ohio Birds Record Committee, the Ohio Ornithological Society and the compiler of the Wilmot CBC but to date have received no replies. I imagine these people are being cautious and working to cross all “t”s and dot all “i”s before commenting in public. There might be questions of the birds’ origin i.e. were they captive reared?

Hopefully, this will be sorted out and I will be able to update you on this seemingly “first ever U.S. overwintering purple martin.” In the meantime if you’re interested in purple martins check out the Purple Martin Conservation Association’s website at purplemartin.org or their Facebook site.

At least it’s not an ivory-billed woodpecker, right?

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

A snowflake by any other name

It was one of those rare winter mornings when Haywood County Schools were on a two-hour delay. Izzy, my second-grader, and I dropped her sister, Maddy, at First Methodist’s outstanding daycare center, blasted by Smoky Mountain Coffee Roasters, grabbed a cuppa joe for me and a cuppa jack (hot chocolate) for her and struck out for Walker in the Hills and the nether reaches of Old Fiddle Road to feed Thomas the cat.

It was mostly clear and sunny, a few high clouds here and there and cold, around 15 degrees Fahrenheit. Looking up from The Great Smoky Mountains Expressway, the trees on the mountaintops looked like they had been flocked. They were just gleaming white. I thought it was rime.

But as we ascended Old Fiddle Road we began to notice little twinkling in the air like fairy dust in a Disney movie. By the time we reached the end of state maintenance on Old Fiddle, the twinkling had turned to sparkling flakes, slowly falling through the air, reflecting the sunlight like tiny mirrors.

I hesitated to call the flakes snow because they were clear (at least translucent). But they were large and definitely crystalline. The ones touching down on the windshield when we stopped at Thomas’ house were one-fourth to one-half inch in diameter. These crystals were flocking the trees and the mountaintops.

I don’t know who exclaimed, “Wow! Cool!” first, Izzy or me. But Izzy had the best description. She said it was like we were trapped in a snow globe and someone was shaking it.

The flakes bugged me because all the snow I had ever seen was white. So I did an Internet search and found “diamond dust.”

The best description I found – though a little technical and some European spelling was from “The Weather Doctor” at http://www.islandnet.com/~see/weather/elements/ddust.htm.

Here are some excerpts:

“... At very cold temperatures, 40 degrees below zero (C or F) and colder, snow can actually fall out of the cleanest, clearest blue sky without intervening clouds. Temperatures need not be so cold if there is dust, or other minute particles, in the air on which the water vapour may deposit. When condensation nuclei are present, diamond dust may form at temperatures just below minus 20 degrees C (0 degrees Fahrenheit). At such temperatures, the water vapour in the air spontaneously forms ice crystals which slowly settle earthward. When these falling crystals are caught in the light, they sparkle like gemstones, a weather condition known appropriately enough as diamond dust.

“... At such low temperature, ice crystals form as irregular hexagonal plates, or as unbranched ice needles or ice columns directly from water vapour in the air. The formation of hexagonal-plate crystals is favoured at air temperatures from minus 10 degrees C to minus 20 degrees C (14 degrees F to minus 4 degrees F). Ice plates resemble dinner plates with a hexagonal pattern in their long dimension and are thin relative to their width. Ice columns, on the other hand, look like minute stubby pencils. Columns typically form in temperatures below minus 25 degrees C (minus 13 degrees F). They are long in comparison to their hexagonal cross-section. Larger column crystals fall with their long axis paralleling the ground, but at times, the falling columns may rotate like slow, miniature helicopter blades.”

It was definitely the hexagonal-plate crystal that Izzy and I observed at Thomas’ house the other morning.

Another great Web site for looking at snow crystals is Mark Cassino’s Snowflake gallery at http://www.markcassino.com/newsite/portfolios/snow/index.htm.

Happy winter-weather watching!

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

The Naturalist's Corner

Birrrrrding the big chill

The annual Balsam Christmas Bird Count was scheduled for last Saturday (Jan. 2). However, scary weather conditions — snow, high winds and temperatures in the low teens — especially in the northern count area, caused the count to be canceled.

My birding partner, Bobby Wood, had already made the trip over from Stecoah and I had been up for a couple of hours trying to rouse some owls before we received the news. The truck was loaded and we were in birding mode so we decided to enjoy Mother Nature’s cool offering and kick around the count circle for a while on our own.

We decided to start our morning at Lake Junaluska. The closer we got to the lake, the harder the snow was falling. The roads had a light dusting that rose and swirled at the beckoning of the north wind.

We glassed the back of the lake from the pull-off along U.S. 19. A few coots were present along with some Lake J mallards, a couple of ruddy ducks, some of the feral Canada geese and some hooded mergansers. We flushed a great blue heron from the tall grasses along the wetlands, at our second stop. We watched through our binoculars as the big blue-gray bird launched with deliberate wing beats and cut a swath through the falling snow as it lumbered across the lake.

The lake was productive, as usual, providing 14 species of gulls and waterfowl. The best finds were a lone canvasback that’s been hanging out at the lake for a while, a horned grebe and a pair of lesser scaup. Of course the colorful hooded mergansers and dapper buffleheads are always a treat to see. Plus it seemed uniquely apropos to watch ducks bobbing in the snow on a Christmas count.

We left Lake Junaluska for the Waynesville watershed. The windswept reservoir was the antithesis of Lake J, not a bird to be seen. We cruised the roads around the watershed where we found hermit thrush, white-crowned sparrow, golden-crowned kinglet, hairy woodpecker and red-breasted nuthatch among others. The winter wonderland mystique was reinforced in the watershed as we stood in a small clearing, drenched in sunlight, looking past the occasional snowflake at the dazzling white peaks above us.

We made a few other stops before wrapping up between 1:30 and 2 p.m. We wound up with a respectable winter’s morn birding total of 44 species.

While the official count was canceled this year, I want to thank the town of Waynesville and local farmer Jim Francis for once again supporting the Christmas Bird Count by allowing access to their properties. We’ll see you guys again next year.

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

The Naturalist's Corner

2010-to be continued

Will 150-foot long fiberglass wands magically spin electricity from mountaintop zephyrs across Western North Carolina in the near future? The issue of industrial-sized wind turbines along the ridgetops of Western North Carolina is sure to blow up again when the General Assembly reconvenes in May.

District 57 Rep. Pricey Harrison has vowed to reintroduce legislation promoting the pursuit of large-scale wind power production along the ridgetops of WNC after Senate Bill 1068, amended to discourage such production, passed the Senate and House last August. Sen. Joe Sam Queen, newly elected President Pro Tem Martin Nesbitt, and other mountain senators appear committed to the bill in its new form and dedicated to preserving what they feel is the intent and language of North Carolina’s Mountain Ridge Protection Act.

Opponents of industrial-sized wind farms across the mountains of Southern Appalachia may have a new bat in their arsenal. On Dec. 9, 2009, U.S. District Judge Roger Titus granted an injunction stopping construction of a wind farm in West Virginia, noting that the developer, Beech Ridge Energy LLC, should have sought an Incidental Take Permit from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service because their project was likely to kill federally endangered Indiana bats.

•••

And speaking of bats, biologists and scientists across the Smokies fear the winter of 2009-2010 will be the winter white-nose syndrome shows up in the Smokies. White-nose syndrome, named for the white fungus that appears around the muzzle of infected animals, was first documented from Schoharie Cavern, near Albany, N.Y., in 2007. The disease has spread rapidly and is moving south. Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New Hampshire, West Virginia and Virginia have been added to the list of states reporting white-nose syndrome bringing the total to nine states. More than a million bats, including 25,000 endangered Indiana bats have succumbed to white-nose syndrome and biologists believe the jump from Virginia to Tennessee and/or North Carolina is inevitable.

•••

It’s been a long and winding road from “nowhere” to a cash settlement. But does a paltry $12.8 million settle anything. The money, buried deep in this year’s omnibus spending bill was secured by former Swain County resident Congressman Heath Shuler. Swain County residents seeking a cash settlement had arrived at a more substantial $52 million settlement figure. Shuler calls the $12.8 million a “down payment” and promises to keep working for a more equitable settlement. In a county basically bereft of property tax revenue (over 85 percent of the land in the county is federally owned), it seems only fair the Feds should pony up a little more. I hope Shuler shows the same kind of conviction and courage he did standing behind Mike Ditka’s porous offensive line for the New Orleans Saints.

Everything old is new again – happy (old) new year!

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