Search
Close this search box.

Outdoor Updates: Man found in Smokies 5 days after he went missing

Man found in Smokies 5 days after he went missing

Kevin Mark Lynch, the New Jersey man with dementia who disappeared from the grounds of his resort on the border of Great Smoky Mountains National Park, was found “alert and responsive” five days after he went missing. Lynch was located just ¾ of a mile from where he was last seen on the Catalooche Divide Trail, which connects the property of the Swag, the resort where Lynch was staying with his family, to the park. 

More than 200 search and rescue personnel combed the dense, steep mountainsides where Lynch was last seen. Just hours before he was found, a searcher found Lynch’s hat and sunglasses about 1,600 feet off the Catalooche Divide Trail. A few hours later, Lynch responded to a searcher’s yells and was located. He was taken to Haywood Regional Medical Center and reunited with his family.

The Asian long-horned tick is on the move

The Asian longhorned tick has been found for the first time in the state of Delaware. The tick is known or suspected of carrying a number of pathogens or diseases that can affect humans, wildlife and livestock in other countries, where bites from the tick have made humans seriously ill. In the United States, there have only ever been two reported incidents of the tick attaching to humans and no disease transmission to humans or animals has yet been reported.

The Asian longhorned tick was first discovered in the United States in New Jersey in 2017, though it is suspected the tick has been in the United States since 2010. Since it was first discovered, the tick has spread to 12 states, including Pennsylvania and Maryland. The tick is native to regions that are similar to the northeastern United States, allowing it overwinter and survive in the region. 

A lone grizzly bear returns to Idaho’s Bitterroot ecosystem for the first time in 80 years

There are about 55,000 grizzly bears living in the wild in the United States. Most of those grizzly bears live in Alaska; only about 1,500 grizzlies total are left in the continental United States, mainly in Wyoming and Montana. But one bear is expanding his range into the Bitterroot ecosystem in Idaho and it’s the first time a grizzly has been documented in the region since 1932 (though in 2007 a hunter killed a grizzly on the outskirts of the Bitterroot recovery area.)

The single grizzly bear has made his way down from Montana’s Cabinet Mountains, where it was released in 2018. He is wearing a tracking collar and has been spotted on wildlife cameras in remote areas of the Bitterroot recovery zone. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Grizzly Bear Recovery Plan designated this area a key grizzly population recovery zone and think it could support a population of up to 300 grizzlies. 

Share this post:

Discover more in the Blue Ridge:

Join our newsletter!

Subscribe to receive the latest from Blue Ridge Outdoors Magazine sent directly to your inbox.

EXPLORE MORE: