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• Former Tennessee Wildlife and Resources Agency biologist alleges agency manipulated data on deer disease
  in News
  By Anita Wadhwani

  A Tennessee deer with Chronic Wasting Disease.  Tennessee Wildlife Federation

  In a lawsuit filed against the agency, the former employee claims officials misled the public about the rate of a neurological disorder in deer, changing protocols to avoid admitting mistakes.

  This story was originally published by Tennessee Lookout.

  NASHVILLE — A former state biologist claims he was confronted in his home by law enforcement officers with the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency on the same day he sent his boss’s superiors evidence the state was falsifying data on wildlife diseases.

  After his cell phone, laptops and other items were confiscated, the biologist said he was then subjected to hours of questioning by officers — among them the husband of his immediate supervisor.  

  James Kelly (video link features Kelly at 10 minutes), a wildlife biologist, led the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency’s deer management program, chaired the agency’s Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) Deer Management Standing Team and served as a wildlife biologist until he was fired in 2022.

  In a whistleblower lawsuit filed this week, Kelly alleges state officials manipulated data and misled the public about the prevalence of chronic wasting disease, a fatal and infectious disease that attacks deer populations.

  (TWRA would not comment on the specific allegations in the filing, but said its data was solid).

• Conjuring life at Worthington Cemetery
  in News
  By Ben Pounds

  Jimmy Groton, a Tennessee Citizens for Wilderness Planning board member, clears invasive plants at Worthington Cemetery in Oak Ridge during a volunteer work party in July.  Ben Pounds/Hellbender Press 

  Volunteers nurture life in an Oak Ridge cemetery

  OAK RIDGE — The northern corner here is a small place teeming with treasures, including the Worthington Cemetery Ecological Study Area.

  Elza Gate Park off Oak Ridge Turnpike, also known as Tennessee Highway 95, is the starting point for walking trails taking visitors through a cedar barren, a somewhat open habitat including eastern red cedars. The barrens include plants more similar to a prairie than many East Tennessee forests. The trail reaches a cemetery dating before the founding of Oak Ridge.

  Woven together in this small area there is a natural mix of wildlife and historical preservation. Visitors to the loop trail will encounter a pine forest and a wetland area complete with a boardwalk to observe birds. Tennessee Valley Authority designated the land as both an Ecological Study Area and Small Wild Area.

• TWRA wants your data on Tennessee’s wild turkeys
  in News
  By Ben Pounds

  American wild turkey populations have recovered from historic lows. TWRA still needs help managing the modern populations.  Courtesy Eric Lowery via Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency

  TWRA wants you to help build research on USA’s second bird

  NASHVILLE — Benjamin Franklin only joked (we think) about making the wild turkey the national bird, but this summer you can help Tennessee with research on the turkey’s national history and renaissance.

  Turkeys and bald eagles both grace the state and Southeast and have a notably parallel history of climbing from dire straits nationwide. 

  The bald eagle became the national symbol on the U.S. seal in 1782. 

  Declaration of Independence signer Franklin said he would have preferred a different bird. While he may have been joking, he never lobbied for it publicly. His comments in a letter to his daughter, Sarah, have become infamous.

  “For my own part I wish the bald eagle had not been chosen as the representative of our country. He is a bird of bad moral character. He does not get his living honestly. You may have seen him perched on some dead tree, where, too lazy to fish for himself, he watches the labour of the fishing hawk; and when that diligent bird has at length taken a fish, and is bearing it to his nest for the support of his mate and young ones, the bald eagle pursues him, and takes it from him … the turkey is in comparison a much more respectable bird, and withal a true original native of America.” 

• If you see this vanishing snake alert the state
  in News
  By Ben Pounds

  Help TWRA save our pine snakes

  NASHVILLE — If you see a vanishing northern pine snake, biologists with the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency (TWRA) want to know.

  One subspecies of the pine snake, (Pituophis melanoleucus melanoleucus), lives in Tennessee. The snake is considered “threatened” by TWRA due to habitat loss and fragmentation, road mortality, and humans who kill the snakes because they mistake them for timber rattlesnakes.

  Brian Flock, biodiversity coordinator for TWRA, said the reports will help the agency find out about the threatened snakes’ habitat and behavior.

  “For years we’ve tried to find them. Because of their secretive nature, they’re hard to find,” he said. “We don’t know in Tennessee where they live, how they move around, those kinds of things.” He said they mostly seem to exist in West Tennessee but have been spotted as far east as Knoxville. TWRA, he said, may use the public’s information to add radio tracking devices to the snakes.

• Roll up your sleeves and clean our Tennessee River waterways on April 15
  in Water
  By Thomas Fraser

  KNOXVILLE — Volunteer registration is open for the 34th Ijams River Rescue on Saturday, April 15, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. A severe weather date is set for Saturday, April 22.

  Ijams Nature Center’s annual event removes tons of trash and tires from sites along the Tennessee River and its creek tributaries. Sites are typically located in Knox, Anderson, Blount and Loudon counties.

  “During this cleanup, between 500-1,000 volunteers come together to make a tangible, positive difference in their community,” Ijams Development Director Cindy Hassil said. “It’s eye-opening to participate because you really get to see what ends up in our waterways. Hopefully it makes people more aware of how they dispose of trash and recyclables, and inspires them to look for ways to reduce the amount of waste they create.”

  There are cleanup sites on land, along the shoreline (boots/waders recommended) and on the water (personal kayaks/canoes required).

• ‘Egregious’ abuse of power: Judge slams TWRA falcon seizure and owner’s prosecution
  in News
  By Anita Wadhwani

  Lamar bestows a kiss on one of her raptors. John Partipilo via Tennessee Lookout

  Judge rules that Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency grossly overstepped its bounds following citizen complaint
  

  This story was originally published by Tennessee Lookout.

  NASHVILLE — Holly Lamar, a master falconer and owner of a Nashville “bird experience” business, has a story to tell about each one of her 13 captive-bred birds of prey.

  The story behind Faith, a 7-year-old peregrine falcon, is tied to a particularly rough patch for Lamar, who experienced success as a Grammy-nominated songwriter, then lost nearly everything. The 20-day-old chick arrived just after Lamar fell victim to a financial scam that wiped out earnings from her music career.

  She picked the name “Faith” to symbolize the feelings of trust she was trying to regain in her life — and as a nod to Faith Hill, the country singer who recorded “Breathe,” a 1999 megahit co-written by Lamar. 

  Faith, the falcon, is now dead — one of 13 falcons seized by officers with the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency in a sweeping August search of Lamar’s home and property that a Nashville judge later characterized as “egregious,” an “abuse of the law” and a violation of Lamar’s constitutional rights.

• TWRA to establish prime trout fishing opportunities at Big Soddy Creek Gulf
  in Water
  By TWRA
• Bald eagle release by Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency
  in Creature Features
  By TWRA
  This bald eagle was shot but successfully rehabbed at Memphis Zoo

  STEWART COUNTY — April 8, 2022  Return to the wild!

• Another slice of the wild preserved in Cumberlands
  in Feedbag
  By Thomas Fraser

  Knox News: Nearly 12,000 acres added to Skinner Mountain preserve on the Cumberland Plateau

  The Conservation Fund and state wildlife and forestry officials reached a deal to conserve and manage thousands of wild acres in Fentress County.

  The expanse was previously held by an out-of-state speculative investment company likely originally tied to timber companies.

  The Cumberland Plateau and escarpments have been increasingly recognized for their biodiversity along with the Smokies to the east beyond the Tennessee Valley. The Cumberlands are along a songbird and fowl migration route, and host a niche population of mature timber, mosses, lichens, fungi, mammals and amphibians. Elk were reintroduced a decade ago, and black bears have begun to range across the Cumberlands and their base.

  The area is pocked with caves and sinkholes, some containing petroglyphs and other carvings from previous populations.

  "On the Cumberland Plateau, the key to maintaining biodiversity is to retain as much natural forest (both managed and unmanaged) as possible," a forestry expert told the News Sentinel's Vincent Gabrielle.

  The Foothills Land Conservancy has also helped protect thousands of acres along the plateau and its escarpments in recent years.

• State’s fight against Asian carp scales up
  in Feedbag
  By Thomas Fraser

  WATE: Commercial fishing pulls out 10 million pounds of exotic carp from Tennessee River system

  If you never thought there’d be an Asian carp commercial fishery in Tennessee waters, you were wrong.

  Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency’s Asian Carp Harvest Incentive Program has yielded 10 million pounds of the exotic fish since 2018, the bulk caught downstream on the Tennessee River system at Kentucky and Barkly reservoirs. The fish has been spotted as far upstream as Knox and Anderson counties.

  The Tennessee Valley Authority and TWRA are experimenting with acoustic barriers to prevent further upstream spread of the fish, which compete with native fish for food and habitat.

  “There are four types of Asian carp: bighead, silver, black and grass,” WATE reported. “Experts say the species threatens to disrupt aquatic ecosystems and starve out native species due to their ability to out-compete native species for food like plankton.”

  So what do fishermen do with 10 million pounds of carp?

  It can be sold to wholesalers for distribution abroad and also makes for really good fertilizer.