Inventory of the herpetofauna of Little River Canyon National Preserve

Accipiter Biological Consultants

This 5,543 ha preserve protects the nation’s longest mountaintop river, which flows for almost its entire length down the middle of Lookout Mountain in northeast Alabama. The free-flowing Little River is one of the cleanest, wildest waterways in the South and its canyons are some of the deepest (183 m) in the Southeast. This is the newest park unit in the Cumberland/Piedmont Inventory and Monitoring Network, having been authorized in 1992. It is managed under the guidance of the 1916 Organic Act. The National Park Service (NPS) is responsible for the preservation of native wildlife, including amphibian and reptile species, within Little River Canyon National Preserve in accordance with the 1916 NPS Organic Act, as amended and this direction is re-enforced through both NPS policy and guidelines affecting natural resource management. The Cumberland/Piedmont Inventory and Monitoring Network was established by the NPS Natural Resource Challenge Initiative. Among the goals set forth by this initiative are documentation of the occurrence of at least 90% of the species of vertebrates and vascular plants that occur within each National Park unit containing “significant natural resources” and documenting relative frequencies of occurrence by habitat type and descriptions of the distribution and relative abundance of species of special concern. Following a preliminary review of the existing inventory data within each network park, the Inventory and Monitoring Network for the Cumberland/Piedmont determined that the largest and most pressing data gaps involved amphibian and reptile species. This lack of information was targeted as one of the network’s highest priorities for funding. It is therefore necessary to conduct a baseline inventory of the herpetofauna resources within these NPS Parks, because the existing information is either non-existent or poorly defined.

Inventory of the herpetofauna of Little River Canyon National Preserve

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