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Cataloging The Blue Ridge Parkway Wildlife In Photos

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Did you ever wonder what animals and birds lurk about after dark, or when you’re not looking?

The National Park Service has been working with the Smithsonian Institution to gain some insights to wildlife movements by using more than 30 remote cameras provided by the Blue Ridge Parkway Foundation to capture animals on the move.

By inviting the public—citizen scientists— to play a role in setting up the cameras along the Parkway, the program demonstrated the accomplishments of collaboration in the national parks. Images captured by the cameras are uploaded to the eMammal site run by the Smithsonian.

“From hiking through the woods to find an ideal camera site to seeing what wildlife wandered past the lens, the project is really an adventure,” says Rita Larkin, director of communications with the Blue Ridge Parkway Foundation and volunteer with the program. “We often think of the Parkway in terms of the visitor experience, but this project touches on its amazing role as a haven for biodiversity.”

According to the folks at eMammal, the Blue Ridge Parkway extends almost 4 degrees in longitude and 2½ degrees in latitude, giving it the third-largest geographic range of any unit in the National Park System. Further, with an annual visitation of over 15 million people, the Parkway is one of the most-visited units of the National Park System.

Running 469 miles between Shenandoah National Park and Great Smoky Mountains National Park, the Blue Ridge Parkway runs through some of the most biologically diverse landscape in the world. Black bears, deer, bobcat, owls, and many other wildlife species, along with humans, call this landscape home. As a result, the Parkway forms a unique transect from which to study biodiversity and the role and impact of people on the regions biological diversity.

Through the use of wildlife cameras park biologists hope to study not only what animals call the Parkway home, but the role that humans play in influencing wildlife along the Parkway corridor. The cameras also hopefully will provide a clearer “picture” of the health of the southern Appalachian ecosystems and habitats along the Parkway.

Though this is a serious scientific endeavor, there’s nothing that says you can’t have fun while carrying out science. One of the best things about this project and others like it is that you never know what you’re going to capture on camera

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