Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area Herpetological Inventory 2004-2007- Data Package

Reptiles and amphibians were surveyed in Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area from February 2004 to June 2007. 160 visits were made to the park during this time for a total of 1,433 man-hours. Before sampling began, this research team identified a list of species likely to occur in the park based on historic distribution records for Tennessee and Kentucky. The goal of the inventory was to document at least 90% of the species in this list and provide information about habitat usage and relative abundance. Multiple survey methods were utilized to accomplish these goals. These methods include coverboards, unconstrained general habitat searches, constrained searches of vegetation monitoring plots, frog voice surveys, road driving, and the use of spotting scopes. These efforts resulted in documentation of 90.5% of the species that were likely to occur in the park. This included 57 species with 17 salamander, 11 frog, 16 snake, 6 lizard, and 7 turtle species with a total of 2,909 individuals recorded.