The disease remains a threat to people nearly 140 years after French scientist Louis Pasteur and his team developed a vaccine in 1885, and in the developed world the threat these days comes primarily from wild animals.

Known scientifically as rabies lyssavirus, rabies is a zoonotic disease — meaning it passes to humans from animals — that has been affecting humans since before recorded history.

In the vast stretch of time before a vaccine became available, the disease was a looming terror for human beings because it so often came through a bite from the longest domesticated companion animal, the dog.

Although easily preventable through vaccinations or through speedy medical intervention after possible exposure, the disease is still nearly 100% fatal once symptoms manifest.

The range of these symptoms and singular suffering brought on by the disease have been part of the human experience for so long that mentions of rabies cases date back to the earliest days of recorded history.

Ancient scourge

The deep history and profound impact rabies has had on human society is explored in “Rabid: A Cultural History of the World’s Most Diabolical Virus,” written in 2012 by journalist Bill Wasik and veterinarian Monica Murphy.

To highlight why the disease grips the human imagination, even today, the authors open the book with descriptions of what rabies does to the people and animals it infects.

Instead of using the infected animal’s bloodstream to spread, the rabies virus travels through the nervous system to the brain. Once there its effects often produce aggression and excessive salivation — the proverbial foaming at the mouth.

Historically, one of the hallmarks of the disease in humans is a condition called hydrophobia, which is a fear of water. In fact, the condition describes such a distinctive aspect of rabies that it was used up until modern times to refer to the disease. Wasik and Murphy describe this as one of the disease’s most insidious characteristics as human sufferers throughout history reported being desperately thirsty and yet often deathly afraid of water.

Aside from the telltale fear of water, rabies throughout the centuries has been closely associated with humanity’s deepest fears about madness. Wasik and Patterson point to strong connections between the virus and the origin of tales about vampires, werewolves and even zombies.

Folklore and deep-seated human fears aside, rabies remains a worldwide threat, particularly as humans and animals often share many of the same spaces.

Modern menace

Rabies continues to persist on every continent but Antarctica and kills on average about 70,000 humans annually worldwide, predominantly in Africa and Asia, according to the World Health Organization.

Outside the U.S., dogs are responsible for 99% of human exposures and deaths, according to the WHO, primarily due to extremely low vaccination rates in the developing world.

In the developed world, particularly in the U.S., human exposure to rabies comes primarily from wildlife. About 60,000 people in this country receive medical treatment for suspected rabies exposure each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Any mammal can carry and transmit rabies. In South Carolina, the most common animal carriers are raccoons, skunks, foxes and bats, according to the South Carolina Department of Public Health.

In November, a rabid skunk was confirmed in Easley with three suspected pet exposures. The three dogs suspected of exposure were placed into quarantine as required by state law.

“To reduce the risk of getting rabies, always give wild and stray animals plenty of space,” said Terri McCollister, rabies program director for the DPH, in a statement about the Easley case. “If you see an animal in need, avoid touching it and contact someone trained in handling animals, such as your local animal control officer, wildlife control operator or wildlife rehabilitator.”

According to the DPH, it is important to keep pets up to date on their rabies vaccination, as this is one of the easiest and most effective ways to protect against the disease. The skunk was the fifth animal in Pickens County to test positive for rabies in 2024.

There have been 74 cases of rabid animals statewide this year. Since 2002, South Carolina has averaged approximately 148 positive cases a year, according to DPH.

Simple precautions

With South Carolina — and the Upstate in particular — experiencing rapid development, human-wildlife encounters will continue to increase.

With such encounters comes the potential for possible exposure to rabies, but there are a few simple steps people can take to mitigate that risk, according to advice from DPH and the state Department of Natural Resources.

First, avoid contact with wild animals. Just because an animal may appear cute and cuddly does not mean it is safe to handle.

Another thing to keep in mind is that simply seeing a wild animal in your neighborhood or near your home doesn’t mean it is necessarily rabid, according to Tammy Waldrop, a biologist with SCDNR.

To reduce chances of attracting wild animals, Waldrop said homeowners should not serve or store pet food outside and should secure things like grills and garbage containers away from areas where wild animals can get to them.

It is also important to keep pets up to date on vaccinations. South Carolina law requires pet dogs, cats and ferrets to be vaccinated against rabies.

For more information visit dph.sc.gov/rabies or cdc.gov/rabies.

Rabies in South Carolina fast facts

• Since 2002, about 150 animals annually have tested positive for rabies in South Carolina.
• About 30% of those cases involve a suspected exposure to humans.
• The primary animal carriers in South Carolina are raccoons, skunks foxes and bats.
• State law requires rabies vaccinations for pet dogs, cats and ferrets.
• Any mammal can potentially carry and transmit rabies.

Source: S.C. Department of Public Health

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I had that gut-wrenching feeling you get when someone drops shockingly bad news on you. I have spent 40 years hunting, hiking and botanizing on Naked Knob and Horse Mountain. I have enough stories to tell about that area to fill a chapter in a book. These are my woods, and now they will never be the same — at least not in my lifetime.

A few weeks later, I was talking with Ken Forester, the site manager for Jocassee Gorges, and I asked him if he had seen the hurricane damage on Naked Knob and Horse Mountain. He pulled out his cell phone and showed me before-and-after satellite photos of that exact area.

He then scrolled to a satellite view of Long Ridge, the prominent ridge on Pinnacle Mountain that most people know as “the petroglyph site,” because of the ancient Indian rock carvings that archaeologist Tommy Charles and I discovered there many years ago. The aerial photos showed the same thing, big timber laid down in one direction. He then showed photos of a place near Bootleg Mountain on Lake Jocassee, and a couple more. They all depicted the same story — widespread devastation from straight-line winds in the range of 60 mph or more.

One of the real-world impacts of this is that all that heavy fuel will be on the ground for a decade or more. Having served for years on the mountain firefighting team, I can tell you that if we have a wildfire in that area, it’s going to be a hot fire and it will burn for weeks, if not longer. There is simply no way a crew could put in a handline among that jumbled up mess in order to cut off the fire, and it would be slow going to get a bulldozer in there.

More Hurricane Helene news

The loss of all those mature oak trees will also mean significantly fewer acorns for bears, deer and squirrels. White oak trees, for example, don’t start producing acorns until they are 20 years old, so the deficit is going to be with us for quite a while.

Table Rock Mountain was also heavily impacted, along with the Table Rock watershed and Caesars Head areas, which also suffered from the relentless gale force straight-line winds of Hurricane Helene.

Most hikers have already discovered that their favorite hiking trails are either still closed or have recently been opened back up. With hundreds of miles of hiking trails in rugged, heavily impacted terrain, the work is slow and exhausting. Some trails will need to be rebuilt because of landslides. A pat on the back to all those volunteers who are out there working every day to get our extensive network of hiking trails restored.

Dennis Chastain is a Pickens County naturalist, historian and former tour guide. He has been writing feature articles for South Carolina Wildlife magazine and other outdoor publications since 1989.

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The easement is the culmination of an effort that began in 2023 by The Nature Conservancy with local and state funding partners to secure $1.4 million for the easement.

The easement places permanent restrictions on development for 484 acres of the faith-based camp off U.S. Highway 25 north of Marietta. It will also help preserve habitat for plant and animal species, which include ​​16 rare, threatened or endangered terrestrial species reported within two miles of the property according to TNC.

Protection of the property will also help preserve watershed conditions for the main stem of Gap Creek. The Gap Creek system is known to support the Rosyside dace, Fieryblack shiner and other aquatic species of interest.

The easement was funded by grants from the South Carolina Conservation Bank, the Greenville County Historic and Natural Resources Trust, the Upstate Land Conservation Fund, Awanita Valley, and donors to TNC. 

Proceeds from the easement will help the camp to fund renovations on original buildings, continue to provide for their equestrian program and create inviting spaces where guests can immerse themselves in nature and have transformative experiences that deepen their faith.

“Our goal is always to make sure that we can provide a space in nature for others to come and grow in their faith and strengthen their relationships with their community,” Awanita Valley executive director Brent Wood said in the statement. “We want Awanita Valley to always be here for the community; thanks to this conservation easement, it will be.”

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The Greenville County Historic and Natural Resources Trust board approved $500,000 toward the purchase of two parcels during the board’s Dec. 16 meeting.

The South Carolina Conservation Bank board followed two days later in approving $2.4 million toward the purchase of land that will enlarge the park to a total of almost 1,900 acres.

The expansion plan was publicly announced Nov. 18 during a Greenville County Council finance committee meeting.

The two parcels, one 56.4 acres and the other 9 acres, border the northeast edge of the state park. The larger parcel has frontage on State Park Road. The parcels include a home and a two-acre lake. Ownership would be transferred in 2025 to the state Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism, which operates all state parks.

The new property would expand the existing trail network and add another access point with parking.

Read more about Paris Mountain State Park

Of the $2.4 million committed to the purchase by the state Conservation Bank, the bank anticipates being reimbursed $1 million through a federal grant from the National Park Service’s Land and Water Conservation Fund, according to bank director Raleigh West.

The number of visitors to Paris Mountain State Park has more than quadrupled since the pandemic, and this would be the second major expansion to the park in the past years.

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1,100-acre Saluda Bluffs protected

November saw the announcement of protections for the 1,090-acre Saluda Bluffs property in the heart of the Mountain Bridge Wilderness Area in Pickens County.

Greenville-based Naturaland Trust worked with local and state conservation groups and state agencies to secure the largest privately held, unprotected piece of property in Pickens County for conservation. Ownership of the land will be assumed in early 2025 by the state Department of Natural Resources, which it will use to form the new South Saluda Wildlife Management Area.

The property is effectively the centerpiece of the views from Caesars Head, Table Rock and Jones Gap state parks, which themselves form one of the most scenic stretches of South Carolina’s section of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Highway 11 property protected, may become new state park

Another Naturaland Trust project secured 365 acres near the intersection of Dill Road and state Highway 11 in northern Greenville County, the first step in a process that may lead to the creation of a new state park.

The Glassy Mountain Foothills project came about when the property owner, Spartanburg dentist Holland Satterfield, offered the property to Naturaland Trust at a discounted price of $3.2 million.

Although in very early stages, the plan to make the property a state park is in part dependent on state Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism obtaining a $1 million grant from the National Park Service’s Land and Water Conservation Fund.

Saluda Grade trail property secured

In August the Saluda Grade Trail Conservancy signed a contract with Norfolk Southern to purchase the historic 31-mile rail corridor that will form a trail connecting communities on both sides of the North Carolina-South Carolina state line.

A dream for decades, the Saluda Grade Trail will connect a string of communities in northern Spartanburg County in South Carolina along 31 miles of what was formerly the steepest mainline rail route in the country before it ceased operations more than 20 years ago.

New golf course planned in southern Greenville County

September brought the unveiling of plans for a new signature golf course in southern Greenville County.

Kawonu Golf Club is planned for 294 acres to the west of Fountain Inn, along the Reedy River. Construction is expected to begin in early 2025, with the club opening in 2027. It will be private and golf only, open to a limited number of local and national members and their guests.

About 100 acres of the site will remain a nature preserve, including the portion of the land that hugs the Reedy River.

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I was 4 or 5 years old, and for some reason I had convinced myself that the real Santa Claus was going to be in the Greenville Poinsettia Christmas Parade. I desperately wanted to go see Santa — or “Sandy Claus,” as I called him — but my parents would be working and could not take me.

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Imagine that you had only tasted vanilla ice cream and Baskin & Robbins comes along offering 64 flavors, opening up a whole new sensory experience. It was sort of like that. I was so enamored with our Magnavox color TV, a true technological marvel, that I started calling it the “Magic Box.” 

When you have only experienced television broadcasting in black and white, the transition to color is a profound, life-changing event. Ours was the first color TV in the Slater Mill village and people would come over on Sunday nights after church to watch the “World of Color.” There were only a few programs broadcast in color at the time, but one of the most popular was “Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color.” 

Every “World of Color” episode began with a screen that featured the somewhat-dark background image of a castle, and then a little winged pixie named Tinkerbell would appear and, with a sweeping stroke of her wand, splashes of color filled the screen. It was our first taste of the magic of Walt Disney.  

TV dinners also became popular during that time period because no one wanted to miss even a moment of Disney’s weekly extravaganza and other popular programming. We nibbled on Salisbury steak, peas and carrots, along with a glop of something they called “mashed potatoes” – all the while transfixed on luscious, vivid, full-color images of magnificent waterfalls, the Grand Canyon, hummingbirds sipping nectar from orchids, and bison roaming on the plains. There were also color cartoons and sometimes stories like Davy Crocket. 

One of the most popular westerns of that era, “Bonanza,” was also broadcast in color, but we had only seen it on our black-and-white TV. Once we saw our favorite, best-dressed, faux “cowboys” in natural flesh tones and in a full-color context, we felt like we personally knew the Cartwright brothers, Hoss, Little Joe and Adam, along with silver-haired patriarch Ben. We felt right at home at the Ponderosa.

“Gunsmoke” also eventually made the transition to color. The show was popular even when it was black and white, but with the advent of color, virtually everything took on new meaning. We realized for the first time that Miss Kitty had flaming red hair and a mole – called a “beauty mark” in those days – on her cheek. 

I suppose that little “beauty mark” had always been there, but that’s the thing about seeing something in color versus black and white. Full color draws attention to detail, and adds depth to the image, bringing things in focus that you had never noticed before. I’m glad we’re naturally imbued with color vision. The world would be pretty boring in black and white.

Over time, more and more programs were broadcast in color, but nothing will ever take away from the experience of seeing it for the first time. Nothing will ever erase the magic in the Magic Box.

Dennis Chastain is a Pickens County naturalist, historian and former tour guide. He has been writing feature articles for South Carolina Wildlife magazine and other outdoor publications since 1989.

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What might be surprising is that organization’s mission is national in scope, and its creation was prompted by the U.S. and Canadian governments as part of a settlement in a decades-old timber trade dispute.

The U.S. Endowment for Forestry and Communities has been working for almost two decades all over the country to ensure the nation’s working forests are sustainably managed.

This work not only produces environmental benefits but helps support the timber industry and, through that support, the people and communities that rely on working forests for their livelihoods, according to Pete Madden, the endowment’s president and CEO.

Trade troubles

The endowment is a nonprofit public charity born out of the 2006 Softwood Lumber Agreement between the U.S. and Canada stemming from a trade dispute between the two countries over timber pricing.

As part of the agreement and at the request of both governments, the endowment was created with $200 million in funding to support its mission.

Madden said people don’t usually tend to think a trade dispute could create a meritorious, long-term initiative, but the endowment was set up in perpetuity to use the proceeds from its initial capital to fund the work of sustaining the nation’s working forests.

He said in the 18 years since the endowment’s inception, it has awarded more than $100 million in grants nationwide to “advance systemic, transformative and sustainable change for the health and vitality of the nation’s working forests.”

This work is important to the state and national economies considering the forest products sector supports about 2.5 million jobs nationally and generates an estimated $128 billion in annual payroll, according to Alicia Cramer, the endowment’s chief operating officer.

Market changes

One of the challenges to keeping the American forestry industry healthy is the changing nature of demand for timber-based products, Madden said.

For instance, with the explosion in electronic communication in recent decades the demand for paper has slumped.

These market forces contributed to the closing of paper mills in Canton, North Carolina, and North Charleston and Georgetown in South Carolina, Madden said.

He added that mitigating the negative impact of losing such major employers on their surrounding communities is why the endowment works with forest products industry partners and government agencies to identify and develop new products and markets for those products.

In Southern states such as South Carolina, species like the loblolly pine grow exuberantly and have been a mainstay of the state’s timber industry. By helping identify and support markets for that timber the endowment aims to provide incentives for landowners to keep their land producing a sustainable, marketable product rather than sell off that land for development, Madden said.

“A tree doesn’t care about West Texas crude prices or a war in the Middle East,” he said. “It keeps on growing.”

That’s why the growing demand for cross-laminated and mass timber products for the construction industry is a promising development for the nation’s working forests, Madden said.

With companies like Timberlab in Piedmont in southern Greenville County pioneering precision mass timber fabrication for the building industry, the endowment works to keep forestry a vibrant part of the U.S. economy.

Toward that end, the U.S. Endowment for Forestry and Communities announced in November it was making $6.5 million in funding available for impact investments for projects supporting three primary focuses:

• Forests: Support working forests and the use of sustainable forest management practices for the health and retention of U.S. forests.
• Communities: Work with trusted partners within rural forest-reliant communities to build economic prosperity and resilience.
• Markets: Support forest industry processes and products, both traditional (e.g., paper mills, sawmills) and emerging (e.g., biochar, carbon).

The endowment will release a request for proposals in January with a proposal deadline of March 11, 2025.

For more information, visit usendowment.org.

U.S. Endowment for Forestry and Communities fast facts

• Established in 2006 and based in Greenville with $200 million in initial funding.
• Endowment has grown to $270 million with more than $100 million distributed in grants so far.
• Works to promote the health and vitality of the nation’s working forests and forest-reliant communities.

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Every generation looks through rose-colored glasses when reflecting on the time period in which they grew up, but when I watch old home movies of our Thanksgiving dinners in the ’50s and ’60s, it really does seem that it was simpler: more relaxed; more unconditionally loving; more grateful; and a more civil period in our country’s history than it is today.

We didn’t know it then, but we were Baby Boomers, the children of the Greatest Generation who had fought a world war to preserve the freedoms of liberty. In return for their sacrifice, they wanted nothing more than a better life for themselves and their children.

When I watch those vintage home movies, I see images of my mother in the kitchen wearing her apron dusted in flour, juggling pots and pans, baking, broiling and boiling 10 things at one time. I see my smiling aunts, uncles and cousins, who had come from all around the country, hugging one another, laughing at corny jokes, and beaming with love for those around them – just glad to be there.

I see my frail, 84-year-old grandfather, whom I loved dearly, honored to be sitting at the head of our bountiful Thanksgiving table. Grandpa was an immigrant to this country, coming from England as an orphan in 1917. 

He had run the canteen at the Slater mill, but was also a lay preacher, a writer of poems and a faith healer. I used to curl up next to him on the wide flat arm of his sofa chair. He would tell me stories of having grown up near Nottingham Forest, where Robin Hood robbed from the rich and gave to the poor. He told me stories of Jesus and the cross, of the Good Samaritan, and the Sermon on the Mount. I cried for days when he died. 

These large-crowd communal Thanksgiving celebrations continued until my aunts and uncles, one by one, succumbed to the ravages of old age. By the time I was in my 40s, we were down to my parents, my sister Dorothy and her husband, my brother David and his wife and their two children, and me and my wife, Jane. 

Because most of my mother’s Thanksgiving recipes were scaled for a crowd, she continued to cook huge dinners, which produced lots of leftovers. My father came up with the perfect solution. He would save the compartmented aluminum trays from TV dinners and fill them with turkey and dressing and the trimmings to freeze for later use. 

My parents are gone now, but Jane knows how much a meal of turkey and dressing means to me. She still cooks a traditional Thanksgiving dinner every year, and freezes at least a half-dozen meals to thaw and heat throughout the year. With every bite, for one brief moment in time, those sweet memories come flooding back, filling me with comfort and joy. 

Dennis Chastain is a Pickens County naturalist, historian and former tour guide. He has been writing feature articles for South Carolina Wildlife magazine and other outdoor publications since 1989.

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That’s no longer the case. The transformative example of the Prisma Health Swamp Rabbit Trail Network in Greenville County has demonstrated both the public demand for such trails and the economic impact that demand has on surrounding communities.

Taking note of those factors, active-living groups and economic development professionals in Spartanburg are working together to emulate the Swamp Rabbit Trail model and create an interconnected web of trails that will eventually extend regionally into North Carolina and beyond.

The vision could eventually lead to a network of multiuse trails connecting Greenville and Spartanburg counties.

Community essential

At the most basic level, trails and greenways are good for community health as they afford residents opportunities to get outside, according to Laura Ringo, executive director of Spartanburg’s PAL: Play, Advocate, Live Well.

PAL is spearheading development of the Daniel Morgan Trail system centered on the city of Spartanburg. It is incomplete but the impact has already been substantial. An economic study of the trail prepared by Clemson University showed the $9.9 million spent so far on construction of the trail created $15.1 million in direct economic output.

But the more transformative impact is driven by trail use, Ringo said. Climbing from 310,000 annual trail uses in 2019, the Daniel Morgan Trail has reached more than 688,000 trail uses so far this year.

It has not gone unnoticed by real estate developers. Ringo said PAL has met with about 50 developers in the past two years interested in having their projects connect to the growing trail system.

It’s the kind of momentum demonstrated by the Swamp Rabbit Trail, which has seen residential and commercial development drawn to properties with quick access to the trail since it officially opened in 2009.

The trail currently runs continuously from Travelers Rest to Greenville, with additional spurs in Greenville itself, and includes about 28 miles of multiuse paths. Work continues to extend the connected trail further south, such as in Mauldin where portions of an existing trail have been connected to a pedestrian bridge over Interstate 385.

Regional reach

The Daniel Morgan Trail isn’t only piece of the trail momentum in Spartanburg County.

PAL is part of a consortium of organizations spearheading development of the Saluda Grade Trail along a 31-mile section of abandoned rail line in northern Spartanburg County that leads into Polk and Henderson counties in North Carolina. The purchase of the land for the trail is under contract.

With the example of how the Swamp Rabbit Trail helped drive the transformation of Travelers Rest in northern Greenville County, the small communities along the Saluda Grade Trail – Inman, Gramling, Campobello, Landrum – expect a similar economic boom.

Though it’s still only on the drawing board, the Saluda Grade Trail has already exerted a bit of trail magic, according to Katherine O’Neill, OneSpartanburg’s chief economic development officer.

When Time Bicycles was looking for a place for its headquarters and North American manufacturing operations in early 2023, the abundance of advanced manufacturers in Spartanburg County made the area a shortlisted contender. But what settled the company on the Landrum facility it now calls home was the 30-acre property’s significant frontage along the future Saluda Grade Trail.

O’Neill said it shows the symbiotic potential between trails and economic development.

A grand, connected vision

With such examples showing what trails can accomplish, Ringo said her group is working with others to create a web of interconnected trails that could eventually form an arc connecting The Daniel Morgan Trail network in Spartanburg to the Swamp Rabbit Trail network in Greenville County.

The potential is there to connect Croft State Park southeast of Spartanburg by expanding the Daniel Morgan Trail through the city to USC Upstate, then tying in to the Saluda Grade Trail. From that trail’s end point in Zirconia in North Carolina, it’s only six miles to the Ecusta Trail, a 19.4-mile trail connecting Hendersonville and Brevard. From there, a connection would have to be made to the Swamp Rabbit Trail.

Similar grand trail visions that inspired the founding of Greenville-based Upstate Greenways and Trails Alliance. According to UGATA Executive Director Matthew Hudson-Flege, the ultimate goal is to establish a trail network throughout the 10 counties of the Upstate.

“You see widespread calls for more of this, whether it’s somebody saying, ‘how do I get the Swamp Rabbit Trail in my neighborhood,’ to elected officials pushing for these things to business leaders saying we want more of this,” he said.

Ringo said such a connected network is likely years away, but the demonstrable economic and community health benefits are grounds for optimism.

Daniel Morgan Trail fast facts:

• 55-plus miles of trails in Spartanburg
• 15 trail segments and 22 connected miles
• 16 community partners
• $37 million in secured funding
• More than 688,000 trail uses so far in 2024, up from about 319,000 uses in 2019

Saluda Grade Trail fast facts:

• Still in the planning stages
• Includes 31 miles along historic Saluda Grade rail corridor, which is no longer in use
• Would connect communities of Inman, Gramling, Campobello and Landrum in South Carolina to Tryon, Saluda and Zirconia in North Carolina
• Could eventually link Spartanburg’s Daniel Morgan Trail system to the Ecusta Trail in North Carolina

Swamp Rabbit Trail fast facts:

• 28-plus mile bike and pedestrian trail opened in 2009
• Connects Travelers Rest to Greenville and includes multiple spurs
• Future plans to expand south to Mauldin, Simpsonville and Fountain Inn

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HNRT board chair Pam Shucker and secretary Dennis DeFrancesco shared the update during a Greenville County Council Finance Committee meeting Nov. 18. The county’s half-million would be matched by $2.4 million in state and federal funding, according to DeFrancesco.

The full HNRT board will vote on whether to approve the purchase during its next meeting, expected to be held Dec. 16. Funding is already available as part of the trust’s annual allocation from the county. It would increase the state park to nearly 1,900 acres.

Read more about Paris Mountain State Park

The two parcels, one 56.4 acres and the other 9 acres, border the northeast edge of the state park. The larger parcel has frontage on State Park Road. The parcels include a home and a two-acre lake. Ownership would be transferred in 2025 to South Carolina Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism, which operates all state parks.

DeFrancesco said visitation to Paris Mountain State Park has quadrupled in the past five years. The new property would expand the existing trail network and add another access point with parking.

If approved, it would be the second significant expansion of Paris Mountain State Park in the past few years. The purchase of Shiloh Ridge, on the west side of the park, added nearly 150 acres in 2022. Upstate Forever already held a conservation easement on most of that property, preventing development. Naturaland Trust contributed an additional 120 nearby acres at the same time, bringing the total expansion to almost 270 acres.

The Greenville County Historic and Natural Resources Trust board includes 12 seats – one for each County Council district. It was created in 2021 and is funded annually through the county budget. Its mission is to preserve “the special places that give our community its character,” according to its website.

Shucker told the Finance Committee HNRT has helped protect 2,100 acres across 18 projects since its creation, and that each dollar spent has been matched by more than five dollars in state and federal funding.

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This kind of nonsense would have died out long ago except for the fact that in 1948, an entomologist at the American Museum of Natural History decided that for fun, he would go out and find a bunch of woolly bears and see if the color bands were indeed predictive of the winter weather. The story ran in the New York Herald Times and was picked up by the national press — and the rest is history.

As my fifth-grade teacher used to say, “Let’s put on our thinking caps.” With our “thinking caps” firmly in place, let’s look at the facts of the case. The myth implies that somewhere in the teeny tiny brain of the woolly bear caterpillar is the ability to see into the future and accurately predict climatic events that even the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, with its super-computer modeling based on global climatic patterns, can offer only a “best guess” long-term forecast for the coming winter.

Furthermore, why would woolly bears even care how severe the coming winter is going to be? Woolly bears are among a number of caterpillars, insects and spiders that make glycerol, an organic antifreeze compound that allows them to literally freeze in winter and emerge unscathed in the spring.

In fact, research has shown that the relative length of the black and brown bands in the bristles of the woolly bear is more a function of the age of the caterpillar and the quality if its diet than the particulars of the coming winter.

As for me, I’m going with NOAA and its Climate Prediction Center. They say that La Nina will develop later this fall, resulting in warmer and drier conditions for the Southeast this winter. La Nina is a pool of cooler-than-normal water in the Pacific that affects weather patterns throughout North America.

There is one wrench in the works, and it is becoming a regular feature in our winter-weather pattern. The polar vortex is a powerful mass of extremely cold air swirling around the Arctic Circle. It is typically held in a tight circular pattern, but in recent years it has periodically slowed down and released plumes of arctic air that get caught up in the jet stream, which brings the frigid air down our way.

An intriguing possibility is that one of those slugs of arctic air coincides with a moisture-laden low-pressure system, resulting in an epic snow or ice event, breaking a two-year snow drought for the Southeast.

Sometimes even NOAA gets it wrong, so you’re welcome to consult the woolly bear caterpillar if you like. It won’t be that long before men in top hats will be dragging a hibernating groundhog out of his den to glean the bewildered creature’s weather forecast for the coming spring.

Dennis Chastain is a Pickens County naturalist, historian and former tour guide. He has been writing feature articles for South Carolina Wildlife magazine and other outdoor publications since 1989.

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The 1,090-acre Saluda Bluffs property is effectively the centerpiece of the views from Caesars Head, Table Rock and Jones Gap state parks, which themselves form one of the most scenic stretches of South Carolina’s section of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Naturaland Trust leaders were joined by conservation and state funding partners to announce the Saluda Bluffs acquisition Nov. 13.

Conservation vision

The parcel was the largest privately held, unprotected piece of property in Pickens County and in many ways represents the culmination of Naturaland Trust founder Tommy Wyche’s vision for protecting South Carolina’s mountain corridor, according to the trust’s executive director, Mac Stone.

The trust was able to secure the property earlier this year through a historic $9 million refundable grant from the South Carolina Conservation Bank.

That funding will be reimbursed with $2 million through the state Office of Resilience and a $7 million appropriation through the state Department of Natural Resources, which will assume ownership of the property in early 2025 to form the new South Saluda Wildlife Management Area and be opened for public use.

Protecting a significant portion of the Saluda River floodplain was a priority for the state Office of Resilience, according to Ben Duncan, the office’s chief resilience officer. Protecting the river’s water quality was also a priority for Easley Combined Utilities, which contributed $500,000 toward acquiring the Saluda Bluffs property.

“It’s much more cost effective for us to protect drinking water at the source, than to treat it later,” according to Andy Sevic, ECU’s general manager.

Bullseye view

According to Stone, the property is the scenic bullseye of more than 10,000 acres of surrounding protected lands, including:

• Table Rock State Park
• Greenville watershed
• Watson Cooper Heritage Preserve
• Caesars Head State Park
• Jones Gap State Park 
• Ashmore Heritage Preserve
• Bald Rock Heritage Preserve
• Wildcat Wayside State Park

The project also protects important frontage along Cherokee Foothills Scenic Highway 11, and thanks to this connection will make the 1.4 miles of the South Saluda River on the property’s northern border accessible for trout fishing, Stone said.

He added such projects would not be possible without the collaboration of willing property owners.

The former owner, Hans Menzel, operates Spartanburg-based Menzel US and worked with Naturaland Trust to protect the property.

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With the storm’s impact as a backdrop, Greenville Water unveiled progress on a streambank restoration project along the Callahan Branch near the utility’s North Saluda reservoir in northern Greenville County.

The Oct. 30 event brought together Greenville Water officials and community stakeholders to highlight the importance of the project on a small tributary of the North Saluda River.

Reducing impacts

The roughly $300,000 Callahan Branch project was funded in large part by a grant from the state Department of Environmental Services, which was formed when the Department of Health and Environmental Control split into two agencies in July. It distributes federal grant funding from the Environmental Protection Agency under Section 319 of the Clean Water Act.

Among other things, such grant funding supports projects aimed at restoring healthy riparian buffers along waterways to reduce sediment and other runoff.

Greenville Water’s 319 project along the Callahan Branch involved restoring about 1,000 linear feet of streambank by placing 20 in-stream structures like rocks and toe wood revetments — a kind of woven mat that stabilizes banks and encourages growth of plants that further shore up streambanks.

Another big part of the project was removing invasive species like kudzu and using heavy earthmoving equipment to partially reconfigure the stream’s path, all with the goal of reducing erosion and the amount of sediment making it into the stream, according to Austin Williams, conservation technician supervisor with Greenville Water.

Helene and its aftermath have delayed the project’s final phase of planting native species of trees, shrubs and other plants that naturally capture sediment and other runoff.

In some ways, the whole point of projects like this is to mitigate the impact of storms like Helene, Williams said.

“We’re building for resilience from these storms,” he said.

Being good neighbors

The project does not directly benefit or change the quality of Greenville’s water, since the utility’s North Saluda reservoir sits above the Callahan Branch and within a pristine watershed basin entirely owned, controlled and protected by Greenville Water.

The project is more about being good neighbors, according to Phillip Kilgore, chairman of the Greenville Water Commission.

By reducing the amount of sediment getting into the Callahan Branch, the project also aims to reduce the amount getting into the North Saluda River, which supplies water for tens of thousands of people downstream.

Williams said the project has also given his team valuable experience in how to do these projects. That will enable the utility to tackle similar projects on other waterways as and when opportunity and funding is available.

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Ballooning in spiders is an extremely effective method of getting from one place to another, and Joros have perfected the art.

Baby Joro spiders, born in the spring, are naturally attuned to wind speed, updraft and humidity. When conditions are just right, they climb to some elevated launch pad and spray drag lines of silk from their little spinnerets. These long drag lines catch the vernal breezes, sending them off into the wild blue yonder. Sometimes it may only be a few dozen yards, but when there is sufficient thermal updraft, they can ascend all the way into the jet stream and drift a hundred miles or more.

Joros are remarkably prolific. I recently took a short four-wheeler trip on our property and encountered no less than a dozen Joro webs in 30 minutes. I was surprised with a face-full of the silk from one web that I did not see coming. I can tell you that it is quite sticky and very effective at catching insects.

Examine a Joro web and you will find numerous insect carcasses neatly wrapped in golden strands of silk. You may also notice a small nondescript spider in some remote corner of the web. Those are the males, just waiting in the wings for the time when they get the call to contribute to the next generation.

The gold-colored silk of Joro webs is only apparent when the sun is at just the right angle; otherwise, they are nearly invisible from a distance.

Female Joro spiders are frightfully big, boldly colored and supported by wickedly long black legs. Frankly, they’re kind of scary looking — somewhat like those giant Halloween spooky spider decorations dangling from front porches this time of year.

While they look scary, Joros are actually pretty timid and will sometimes run and hide if you stand too close to the web. They rarely bite unless threatened, and if they do the wound is not serious and easily remedied in the same way you would treat other insect bites and stings.

The real question about the relatively recent arrival of Joros is whether they will displace our native spiders. Time will tell, but one thing is certain — when they occupy an area, they quickly multiply and fill it to the max.

One fundamental principle of ecology is that when an animal is first introduced into a new habitat, it will rapidly expand beyond the carrying limits of the habitat. The population will then crash, but over time will recover and re-establish itself at a level more in balance with the resources of the habitat.

Meanwhile, don’t get spooked. Joros are now firmly entrenched in the Upcountry of South Carolina and are here to stay.

Dennis Chastain is a Pickens County naturalist, historian and former tour guide. He has been writing feature articles for South Carolina Wildlife magazine and other outdoor publications since 1989.

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