Wood is Good!

Large woody debris helps slow the flow of water, making it easier for adult fish to move upstream and for juveniles to rear. This in turn helps them expend less of their limited and valuable energy fighting strong currents.

Gravel is an important material for salmon and steelhead to build redds and lay eggs. Adding wood debris to streams helps slow water flow allowing larger sediment like gravel to fall to the streambed instead of continuing downstream.

Large woody debris can help decrease water temperature by providing shaded areas along streams and creating pockets of cooler water for cold-water loving species.

Large woody debris creates places for fish to hide and seek refuge from predators.

Woody debris helps trap organic material like leaves and twigs that provide nutrients for insects and invertebrates (critters without spines), which in turn provide food for fish.

Large woody debris helps reinforce streambanks and channels by preventing erosion of soil along banks.

Pools of water and “steps” created by woody debris can also provide habitat for fish during periods of low water flow.

Don’t Move The Rocks!

Rocks aren’t in rivers just for looking pretty or providing a step bridge across the stream for humans, they serve as vital habitat for many aquatic species, most notably the ancient and odd-looking hellbender salamander.

The largest salamander in North America, it can grow to 2 feet long. But the hellbender is on the North Carolina list of endangered species and the federal list of species of concern, said Lorie Stroup, fisheries biologist on the Pisgah National Forest.

“We want people to enjoy the rivers, but we want them to leave it as they found it. It’s one thing to skip a stone with your child,” Stroup said. “It’s another thing when you’re starting to move hundreds of rocks to build a dam or build some kind of chute to get a tube down.”

The Forest Service has installed signs all along the Davidson that say:   “Don’t Move the Rocks! Moving rocks will destroy the homes of many important fish, insects and salamanders.”

The first signs were installed about 10 years ago in areas where Hellbenders are known to live and breed, in high elevation, pristine streams in Pisgah National Forest. But many signs have gone missing or fallen into disrepair, she said.

The Forest Service wants to put up more signs to help educate people about this unique species that needs not only rocks, but pristine stream conditions to live.

The Eastern Hellbender is an ancient, nocturnal amphibian that often hides under the same rock for its entire adult life span, which can be up to 30 years. It emerges at night to feed largely on crayfish. The brown, mottled, slimy-looking creature with a large head and long tail has been referred to as “snot otter” and “dragon” because of its appearance.

It breathes through folds of skin along its sides. The hellbender has remained largely unchanged since the age of the dinosaurs and for millions of years has found a home in the waters of Appalachia.

But the salamanders now find themselves in perilous danger from loss and degradation of habitat. Sediment from runoff, prescription and over-the-counter drugs, personal care products such as soaps, fragrances and cosmetics and other chemical pollutants, and the physical disturbance of their rocky homes by unknowing boaters, swimmers and people tubing through their habitat, are suspected in contributing to the hellbender’s decline, state and federal biologists say.

“Once a nest rock is moved, hellbenders won’t ever use that rock again. It’s a biological thing,” Stroup said. “There’s not a whole lot of clean, pristine habitat left for hellbenders. A lot of time we were damming rivers and creating lakes, we lost a lot of that riverine habitat for aquatic species.”

The Forest Service, in cooperation with the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission and Freshwaters Illustrated, produced a video found on Vimeo: “The Last Dragon – Protecting Appalachia’s Hellbenders,” to aid in educating the public about the hellbenders’ decline and how to help.

“They look like little dinosaurs. They’re awesome animals that need awesome habitat, which needs to stay there,” Stroup said. “If you see hellbenders in a stream, that means there are other organisms in that stream that will be in good shape.”