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Feature article
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A week in the wilderness offers a range of activities
By Leigh Ann Laube
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Wolves don’t attack people. Wolves don’t howl at the full moon. And, wolves aren’t evil and shouldn’t be destroyed.
That’s the message David Taylor will give at the 16th annual Wilderness Wildlife Week, Pigeon Forge’s nine-day conservation education event.
The event, which will be headquartered at the Music Road Hotel & Convention Center Jan. 7-15, will offer participants the chance to join in more than 50 hikes and field trips as well as more than 100 lectures, workshops and presentations. Topics will include natural and cultural history, photography, fly fishing, songbirds, orienteering, wildlife, wildflowers, legends of the Cherokee Indians and early settlers, and more.
For 15 years, Taylor, interpretive services supervisor at Bays Mountain Park, has joined Wilderness Wildlife Week to educate folks about wolves. His program is entitled “Grey Wolf – Myth and Reality.”
“I will point out wolf behavior in the wild, also Bays Mountain’s emphasis on the wolves — why we have them, where we got them,” Taylor said. “I’ll show a video with staff working with wolves. I also take with me resources, books, handouts, and the skulls we have illustrating the difference between a mountain lion, wolf, bear and coyote. And I’ll have a tape of the wolf howling.”
Taylor is one of about a dozen presenters who are from the Tri-Cities.
Joe Taft, a retired senior naturalist from Bays Mountain, will present “Great Snakes Alive,” a program he hopes will help people understand snakes and their role in the environment, and also lesson some folk’s fear and hatred of the reptiles.
“People assume the worst and they assume that any snake needs to be killed, regardless,” Taft said.
Taft will have with him a black rat snake, a red rat snake (also called a corn snake), and two freeze-dried snakes — a timber rattlesnake and a copperhead.
Not everyone is ignorant about the role of snakes in nature.
“There are a lot of people who or say that black snakes are good and will keep other snakes away. That’s partially true,” Taft said. “A black king snake will eat other snakes. A black rat snake in your barn will keep rats away. There are some knowledgeable people.”
And then there are the myths, which he will also cover.
“There are a lot of stories. There’s a snake called the eastern milk snake, and the old tale ... is those snakes milk cows. Of course they don’t. And there are stories that black racers will chase you. And then there’s the hoop snake, which has a sharp tail and it rolls down the hill and whatever the sharp point on the end of its tail touches dies. There’s no such thing as hoop snake.”
Included in the list of more than 90 experts who will - Volunteers with the Bays Mountain Raptor Center
- Larry Bristol, geologist paleontology coordinator at East Tennessee State University and the Gray Fossil Site
- Kevin Hamed, former manger of Steele Creek Park Nature Center, and current biology instructor at Virginia Highlands Community College in Abingdon
- Brad Jones, park ranger, naturalist and special events coordinator with the Johnson City Parks and Recreation Department
- Dan Russo, retired associate professor of economics from East Tennessee State University
- Marty Silver, park ranger/naturalist with the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation at Warriors Path State Park
- A. Christine Tipton, former faculty member with the East Tennessee State University history department
- Robert E. Whittemore, chief geologist for General Shale Brick, Johnson City
- Valerie Wood, volunteer with the Bays Mountain Raptor Center
- Gabrielle Zeiger, member of the Tri-Cities Mushroom Club and the North American Mycological Association.
For more information or a brochure outlining all the activities of Pigeon Forge Wilderness Week, call 1-800-WINTERFEST or the Pigeon Forge Office of Special Events at 865-429-7350.
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