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Extinct or Endangered Animals in Tennessee

The southeastern U.S. state of Tennessee has 70 extinct or endangered animals, according to the Endangered Specie website. Many of these are animals that live or lived in the state's areas of wilderness, such as the Appalachian Mountains and the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. In order to preserve threatened species, a number of action groups, such as the Nature Conservancy, have become involved in Tennessee's ecology.

Types of Endangered Animals
- A wide variety of animals are endangered in Tennessee. These include fish, such as the yellowfin madtom and spotfin club, which are found in rivers such as the Duck and Emory, alongside birds, including the red-cockaded woodpecker. Threatened mammals include the red wolf, of which a mere nine still live in the wild as of 2011, according to the U.S. Geological Survey website, and the gray bat. However, numbers of gray bats in Tennessee have increased since the mid-2000s, when the animal began to return to areas such as the Middle Tennessee caves, as reported by the Physorg website.
Types of Extinct Animals
- Animals previously native to Tennessee include a few mammals, such as the eastern puma, or eastern cougar. This mammal's status is disputed, with some purported sightings of this catlike animal suggesting that it remains in the wild. Some clams, such as the Tennessee riffleshell and the leafshell, have not been seen since the early 20th century and are considered extinct, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service website.
Causes
- A major reason species are threatened in Tennessee is habitat loss. Many animals require specific habitats which have been destroyed or altered for agricultural purposes by humans, reducing the range of the animal. For example, the red-cockaded woodpecker makes its home in mature pine forests of a certain age; these forests are disappearing as the result of logging as well as natural disasters, such as Hurricane Hugo in 1989. Other factors which threaten animals include disease, interbreeding with other species and, in the case of the Shenandoah salamander, infestation of habitats by non-native insects.
Recovery Initiatives
- Tennessee's endangered species are protected by the 1973 federal Endangered Species Act, and in some cases, initiatives are under way to stabilize populations --- or at least to understand why a particular species' numbers have dropped. Both local groups and federal organizations are involved; for example, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Shenandoah National Park staff have joined forces in an attempt to save the Shenandoah salamander. They are researching more about this amphibian with the goal of monitoring it more effectively in the future.

Animals & Science