[Bernardo]

Yesterday at Shenandoah National Park in Virginia:

From the AT in Shenandoah National Park

Mary's Rock

At Sunset in November from the AT in Shenandoah National Park

View from the AT

Sunset from the AT in Shenandoah NP

Rock near AT

The AT in Shenandoah NP

AT marker

November AT View from Shenandoah National Park

Fall View from Appalachian Trail

Sunset from AT in Shenandoah National Park

Why they call them the Blue Ridge Mountains

Unfortunately, the day was marred by seeing two dead bears. The exceptionally huge crowds at the Park yesterday brought a constant stream of autos on roads that usually are not that busy. I saw two bears that had been killed by cars: a small cub in the park and large cub or small bear near the park. I reported recently on a sow and cub I had seen. The cub was less than a mile from that sighting and could have been the same animal. We've been talking about empathy lately. I wonder how much a mother bear suffers when she loses a cub like that? She and the cub would have been entering a den soon and spending the winter together. Now she's on her own after so much work and could one say love? At a minimum, warning signs and a lower speed limit would be warranted when traffic is so high. I believe that animals that might wait to cross a road when traffic is sparse were overwhelmed by the volume of cars. Either that or the odds of an accident are simply much higher when the flow of cars is nearly continuous.

Heavy traffic has its costs.

Some photos taken on other trips this year:

Buck in Shenandoah National Park

Virginia Box Turtle near Shenandoah National Park

Farm in Valley near Shenandoah National Park

Well Maintained Farm near Shenandoah National Park

Typical Appalachian Mountain from Valley Floor

Salamander or Newt?

Edge of the Park

Black Vulture above Shenandoah National Park

Swooping Black Vulture in Shenandoah National Park

A basalt outcropping in Shenandoah National Park

Great Falls near Washington, DC

[Ski]

Poor bear! What is the speed limit?

[Bernardo]

It's a country style road known as U.S. highway 211. It's a two lane road that crosses through the park and the speed limit is 55 mph. On Skyline Drive which runs the length of the roughly north-south park the speed limit is 35. When I was on top of Mary's Rock after dark, I was shocked by the traffic jam I could see of folks waiting to exit Skyline Drive and get on 211. The other bear was just outside of Sperryville the first town outside the park. That road has divided lanes and is more like a highway so there would be less that could be done there.

[gb]

Thanks, Bernardo, for bringing up this issue. Speed limits are likely to be a strong consideration. People need to not drive faster than their reaction time would allow given visibility. But many are ignorant about that. I also agree on emotional trauma. Animals clearly have emotions. It is very easy to see emotions and roughly understand them in dogs for instance. Some PBS programs demonstrate that clearly as, for example, when animals see humans that were important to them after many years of absence, or demonstrable grieving on the part of a pride of elephants. And then there was the recent example of the Orca carrying her dead young calf for seventeen days.

[Ski]

[olderthanIusedtobe]

Dang, sad to see a pair of road killed bears. I don't like seeing any type of road kill, I see raccoons and possums fairly often, deer sometimes.

[GaliWalker]

Looks like all the trees are bare. Shenandoah really comes into its own during peak fall foliage. Nice photos, still.

[natural_log]

Yosemite is known for its "Speeding kills bears" and other wildlife messaging (you can even get a magnet from your friendly conservancy). But people just don't care; they treat driving on these roads like driving in town. My least favorite thing about visiting national parks is the tailgaters. Shenandoah is notoriously crawling with bears, it surprises me that there would be high speeds posted, even on the state highway through the park.