Shenandoah National Park, Virginia, United States

(Quelle Bilder : www.parksonline.org )

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Shenandoah National Park is located in northwestern Virginia, northwest of Charlottesville, Virginia. The Park is about 75 miles west of Washington, DC.

(Origin pictures: www.us-national-parks.net )

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Black Bears
Black Bears are the only type of bear found in Shenandoah National Park. Although they are carnivores, their diet is quite varied. They'll eat grubs and other insects, roots, flowers, grasses, acorns, fruit, and carrion, as well as ground hogs, deer, and other mammals. Bears in the park enter winter dens in October and November, but some may rove about all winter if the temperature is mild. Females will have their cubs around February, and nurse their infants in the den. They'll emerge in April or May, usually after the adult males have been out of their own dens for a while. Mating time is early to mid summer. A female will keep her newborn cubs with her until she is ready to mate again, every other year. The park believes there are from 300 to 500 bears in Shenandoah National Park.

Peoples Before the Park
For at least 10,000 years people have lived on the Blue Ridge Mountains. Prehistoric humans have hunted and gathered game, fruit, nuts, and berries on the upland slopes, and some may have constructed permanent villages at the lowest elevations near the Piedmont and Shenandoah Valley.
The earliest European settlers moved into the lower areas of the mountain range by the mid-18th century, ever moving upward in search of land for farming, grazing, and orchards. Later, some owners purchased mountain land for the extraction of resources: copper, lumber, bark for tanning of leather, and water power for the operation of mills. Others early saw the beauty of the Blue Ridge as a commercial product in itself, and built resorts catering to visitors from the cities. (Origin text: http://www.shenandoah.national-park.com/ ) (Origin picture: www.cr.nps.gov )

Shenandoah was authorized in 1926 and fully established on December 26, 1935.

Babette Oller