Sep 22, 2022
Cade Campbell is from Bristol, Tennessee, and is currently studying Biology at East Tennessee State University. An avid naturalist, he spends most of his free time outdoors, and has both worked and volunteered with the Blue Ridge Discovery Center as a naturalist, and as a field technician elsewhere. Cade recently finished his tenure as a Summer Naturalist Intern at the Cable Natural History Museum.
Where species once migrated south to escape a wall of ice, they must now escape in the opposite direction to avoid excessive heat. My beloved Appalachians are being inundated by wildlife from much farther south. Locations with habitat similar to the Northwoods mere decades ago host life more reminiscent of habitats in the coastal Carolinas or Georgia. Cold-adapted species are forced north or to an untimely local extinction.
This means the Northwoods are receiving new waves of southern species, from great crested flycatchers to swamp darner dragonflies…and for a short time, me. As I prepare for my own migration back south after a summer in the Northwoods, I’m saying goodbye to spruce and fir, black-capped chickadees, and the scarlet clusters of bunchberries. To the wild sarsaparilla, Mayflower, and moccasin-flower I can just say, “I’ll see you at home.” …At least for now.