Fish

Part of what makes the Great Smoky Mountain National Park amazing is the sheer variety of wildlife contained in its borders. One type of animal, that can sometimes go unseen is the enormous variety of fish that live in the park. With almost 60 species in the park and over 2,000 miles of streams, this ecosystem containing cascades and waterfalls, rapids and eddys is one of the most exciting to watch and home to these aquatic animals. You have the opportunity to see several types of trout, darters, shiners and even bass in the streams and rivers in the National Park.

Much like the black bear, the trout is one of those animals that has come to represent the National Park. The rainbow trout is one of the most well known but the brook trout is the only native trout species of the Smokies. The brook trout used to have the run of the streams in the park but they have lost almost 75% of their habitat due to the introduction of more aggressive and faster breeding trout like the rainbow and brown. You can still find brook trout in the park but they are only found in roughly 133 miles so they are certainly the most elusive of the trout species.

The rainbow trout is the most well known trout inside the borders of the Great Smoky Mountain national park. The brown trout, the other non-native trout species, is the largest of the trout in the park. Though the trout are numerous and their numbers grow every year the streams do not produce very large trout. Most of the trout you will see in the park are less than 8 inches long and only the brown, due to the fact that their diet includes other fish, live long enough to reach lengths of around thirty inches.

Along with the trout you have four federally protected fish species in the National Park. All of these protected fish live in the Abrams creek area. The spotfin chub, dustytail darter, smoky madtom and the yellowfin madtom call Abrams Creek home. Their numbers have decreased, placing them on the endangered list, so placing these fish on a protection program has increased their numbers and with continued vigilance they may be able to come off those endangered lists.

Birds Amphibians Fish Mammals Reptiles Synchronous Fireflies