iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Wally Smith @wsmith1.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Congrats to our awesome student assistant Raegan for snagging her 1st pauleyi record today. Due to sheer bad luck, Raegan missed most of our (very spotty) pauleyi sightings this summer but found this one in the middle of the afternoon at 2pm in the 1st crevice she looked in. That’s pauleyi for you…

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Wally Smith @wsmith1.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Views from an evening walk thru Helene-damaged Little Mountain here in SWVA. In order: 📸Fast food break on a long road trip (courtesy of veg in new edge habitat created by Helene) 📸 Profile view of Grandfather Mtn, NC 📸Tallest peaks E of the Rockies in NC's Black Mountains 📸Another fast food stop

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Wally Smith @wsmith1.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

But there’s a problem: that isn’t a valid argument for many old mines. One of our pauleyi sites, in fact, is being promoted by TNC as a priority site that can be bulldozed for utility-scale solar w/o harming wildlife. Yet it’s home to a reproducing pop of a potential ESA candidate species.

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Wally Smith @wsmith1.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Does this mean that coal mining isn’t a threat to the species? No. Newer and larger mines (like many MTR mines) likely don’t support it. But we found that, in cases where native forests have recovered following mining, old mines are statistically indistinguishable from the species’ natural habitat.

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Wally Smith @wsmith1.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

We specifically looked at whether pauleyi can live on old surface mines - something that a recent ESA listing petition & 90-day finding from USFWS assumed could not occur. We found that, in certain cases & on certain old mines, those assumptions were unsupported, & species is right at home.

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Wally Smith @wsmith1.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Super excited to share this new paper we have out today on the very cool & very understudied Plethodon pauleyi. This was an undergrad-led project (yes, undergrads!) that nearly doubled the no. of known localities for this species on Earth. (Link: virginianaturalhistorysociety.com/wp-content/u...) 🧵

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Wally Smith @wsmith1.bsky.social · 04/01/2026

Excited to have our hellbender restoration white paper out w/ the USDA! Our multiyear work to restore ecological & hydrologic function to a degraded reach of the Holston River provides a roadmap for building climate/flood resilience into habitat projects www.landscapepartnership.org/networks/wor...

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Wally Smith @wsmith1.bsky.social · 15/10/2025

Beautiful fall day on the mountain above campus for some geoecology work as part of our USFWS-funded project on Plethodon pauleyi. Easy to forget how spoiled we are having field sites like this just a 15 min drive from the classroom door. One of many reasons why I love working in “far” SWVA.

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Wally Smith @wsmith1.bsky.social · 01/10/2025

The official USFS website right now is...something. Can't recall ever seeing the use of official govt resources for openly partisan objectives like I'm seeing today.

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Wally Smith @wsmith1.bsky.social · 23/09/2025

We've also translated our work into BMPs for mineland mgmt & reuse projects. These are critical as everyone - from conservative politicians to green groups - (inaccurately) sells old mines in #Appalachia as zero-cost sites for solar, data centers, nuke plants, & more. See: bit/ly/GrowingSm...

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Wally Smith @wsmith1.bsky.social · 23/09/2025

Our lab's latest paper reports some good news from the Virginia coalfields: Spotted #Salamanders love colonizing incidental wetlands formed on old coal mines, & now we know a little more about how & why (& which wetlands matter most). Full-text available here: digitalcommons.odu.edu/vjs/vol76/is...

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Wally Smith @wsmith1.bsky.social · 06/08/2025

Found this momma ’mander & baby ’manders on land wrecked by past surface mining & logging above Dante, VA today. A reminder that the phrase ”Who cares? It’s just an old surface mine” minimizes natural treasures like these that deserve our respect (& more thoughtful planning for post-mining land use)

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Wally Smith @wsmith1.bsky.social · 10/06/2025

Because you probably need a timeline cleanse right now, here’s some good news: we surpassed 5 new Virginia populations of Plethodon pauleyi this week for our lab’s new USFWS-funded project. It’s beginning to look like this ESA-petitioned species is (thankfully) much more common than we’d assumed.

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Wally Smith @wsmith1.bsky.social · 01/06/2025

I’ve heard the same argument - that dredging is a quick fix to stop flooding in #Appalachia - from local govt officials in recent meetings here in SW Virginia, just across the border from eastern KY. In reality, stream dredging makes flooding worse (see: www.kymitigation.org/wp-content/u...).

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Wally Smith @wsmith1.bsky.social · 12/05/2025

Here comes Brood XIV of Periodical Cicadas, which are emerging from the soil in huge numbers here at the house this evening after 17 yrs belowground. Ready for the squealin’ to commence.

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Wally Smith @wsmith1.bsky.social · 11/05/2025

Gorgeous spring hike in the Jefferson NF here in Wise County today. Visible in the background (L side of image) is Brumley Mtn, with Holston Mtn and the Iron Mtns near Damascus, VA & the NC line visible on the far horizon.

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Wally Smith @wsmith1.bsky.social · 09/05/2025

Excited to launch a new State Wildlife Grant on the newly-described Plethodon pauleyi. An impressive undergrad team’s habitat analysis from last fall is helping us locate new pops of this enigmatic species, w/ almost 20% of all of Virginia’s known individuals of the species recorded in the last week

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Wally Smith @wsmith1.bsky.social · 27/04/2025

A moment of zen as spring comes to the highcountry at one of our wetland field sites this afternoon.

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Wally Smith @wsmith1.bsky.social · 12/04/2025

The original plans for my annual Nat Hist of the Appalachians course fieldtrip got scuttled by 12 degree wind chills at Grayson Highlands this morning, so we stayed local for work on our project on climate resilience in D. ochrophaeus instead. Hiking thru a rime forest on the way out was a bonus.

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Wally Smith @wsmith1.bsky.social · 23/03/2025

Sure, you think you’re hot stuff. But you’ll never be ravine-salamander-posing-for-a-glam-session levels of fabulous, no matter how hard you try.

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Wally Smith @wsmith1.bsky.social · 23/03/2025

And a few more views here, including a shot of the head of the Buffalo Valley along I-26 in Erwin, which saw catastrophic flooding during Helene. That area sticks out like a sore thumb now, even from 2000+ feet up.

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Wally Smith @wsmith1.bsky.social · 23/03/2025

Much-needed solo seven-miler on the AT today in the Unaka Mtn Wilderness. Equal parts fascinating & awful to see both the wind damage from Helene & scars of flooding along the Nolichucky in Poplar, NC from way up on the ridge.

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Wally Smith @wsmith1.bsky.social · 02/03/2025

Fieldwork in the Jefferson Natl Forest took 3x as long as normal today since it involved some borderline unsafe scrambles over trails/roads still blocked by debris from Helene. So grateful the govt is mass firing USFS staff tasked w/ storm recovery (in case it’s not obvious, this is sarcasm).

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Wally Smith @wsmith1.bsky.social · 20/02/2025

Excited to publish the 1st review article covering the abundance-biomass comparison method w/ @oxunipress.bsky.social today: www.oxfordbibliographies.com/display/docu... Minor news given the dire present state of US science, but disturbance impacts will likely be a big topic here in the coming yrs…

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Wally Smith @wsmith1.bsky.social · 16/02/2025

So much water coming off of the Cumberland Mountains today. A few views of Wise Co., Virginia’s Guest River as it drops nearly 500 vertical feet through the Jefferson Natl Forest in just five miles to meet the Clinch River in the Valley & Ridge Province.

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Wally Smith @wsmith1.bsky.social · 16/02/2025

Many parts of #Appalachia are seeing more extreme rainfall now, as these data from our campus wx station show. A prelim analysis from a broader project, but the trends are clear. Unofficial local totals from today’s flood are nearly 3”, which is above the current decade’s avg wettest day of the year

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Wally Smith @wsmith1.bsky.social · 31/01/2025

It’s flooding (again) today in #Appalachia. As the new admin shuts down fed-supported climate science, here’s a reminder that extreme rainfall is ⬆️ regionwide, incl on our campus, where the annual highest daily rainfall is up 25% since the ‘80s. (Graphed: local NWS data, w/ recent floods shown.)

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Wally Smith @wsmith1.bsky.social · 29/01/2025

Good #conservation news during a bleak week: a proposal to place SWVA’s Upper TN River Valley under less-protective stormwater pollution regs than the rest of VA died in the state senate this evening. An inexplicable bill for any year, but esp after the region got hammered by flooding from Helene.

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Wally Smith @wsmith1.bsky.social · 17/01/2025

Evening snow-hike in the northern hardwoods on High Knob above Norton, VA. No better way to cap off a long work week.

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Wally Smith @wsmith1.bsky.social · 12/01/2025

If you’re wondering how this issue is going over in the community near Red Onion, folks are going full Deliverance stereotype mode. This editorial says yes, human rights abuses are happening, & inmates deserve it b/c it’s “all they understand.” (Source: dickensonmedia.substack.com/p/theres-alw...)

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Wally Smith @wsmith1.bsky.social · 11/01/2025

This kind of disinfo is exhausting & makes up so much of the content on X these days. In reality, the Biden admin did the same thing in #Appalachia after Helene, approving a 100% FEMA cost-share for 6 mos. But you‘d never know it from this post. >15k views & unquestioning outrage in the replies.

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Wally Smith @wsmith1.bsky.social · 29/12/2024

This bridge on the Elk River, built by piling debris in the channel & blasted all over social media as evidence we didn’t need govt regs/oversight for roads or bridges back during the disinfo campaign following Helene, predictably failed & washed out during today’s minor flood.

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Wally Smith @wsmith1.bsky.social · 03/12/2024

Obligatory photo post from recent hikes here in Southwest Virginia: High Knob ➡️ Mendota Trail ➡️ Pickem Mountain Loop ➡️ Post-work hike behind the office on campus

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Wally Smith @wsmith1.bsky.social · 24/11/2024

Sunset moment of zen on the old surface mine behind the house, w/ (faint) auditory cameos of our resident Hairy & Redbellied Woodpeckers.

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Wally Smith @wsmith1.bsky.social · 23/11/2024

Annual game camera survey of the former coal mine on our campus. As industry interests & enviro nonprofits advertise old mines in #Appalachia as sites for data centers & solar farms that “minimize impacts to wildlife,” it’s important to realize they’re oversimplifying a much more complex situation.

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Wally Smith @wsmith1.bsky.social · 23/11/2024

Evening snow hike on High Knob with a random timberdoodle sighting. (It seemed fine and went about its business after a quick photoshoot.) You do you, timberdoodle.

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Wally Smith @wsmith1.bsky.social · 19/11/2024

Absolutely bonkers afternoon in the field at one of our historic Mud #Salamander sites. Almost too many individuals to count at a high-elevation ridgetop wetland over 3000 feet asl where the species isn’t “supposed to” live. Clearly, these ‘manders did not read the field guide.

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Wally Smith @wsmith1.bsky.social · 17/11/2024

On foot on SWVA’s High Knob today, which saw wind damage rivaling that in nearby NC from Helene. Impressive tree damage at 4000 ft elevation, but by some miracle the 100s of downed trees missed the built structures at the USFS rec area situated there. A silver lining despite significant forest loss.

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Wally Smith @wsmith1.bsky.social · 16/11/2024

A few more shots from our post-Helene field site workups this week. Pieces of a home - a front door, a porch, a mangled car, & clothing - strewn across several hundred yards of the Middle Fork Holston River in Smyth County, VA. Unbelievable flood damage & structural change to the river at this site.

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Wally Smith @wsmith1.bsky.social · 16/11/2024

Nice view from fieldwork today of just how patchy wind damage from Helene was in much of southern #Appalachia. Green-outlined area shows swath of tree damage on Brier Ridge near Grayson Highlands, w/ Whitetop Mtn (VA’s 2nd-highest peak) in the background. 2nd photo shows zoomed-in view of the same.

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Wally Smith @wsmith1.bsky.social · 16/11/2024

Appropriate for my first post on here: a mountain shot. Out in Grayson County today for continued post-Helene storm assessment at our field sites. This is looking over the Cabin Creek drainage, with Whitetop Mtn on the right horizon & a little wind damage visible to the right side of the image.

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