Rock piling in streams silts the water, disrupts critical habitat, and can kill rare wildlife. In a river in Pisgah National Forest, scientists have repeatedly found protected Eastern hellbender salamanders crushed under the piles of rocks that tourists build midstream. In addition to the direct killing that takes place while the rocks are being moved, the flat cobbles that would make the best cover for hellbenders to live under tend to be the same individual rocks that rock pilers seek out to incorporate into balanced piles, chutes, and dams; this activity makes the best rocks unavailable to be used as habitat. Dismantling the piles and dispersing the stones does not seem to prevent their being repeatedly stacked into new piles. The biologists suspect that rock piling may be a widespread conservation problem for hellbenders, a rapidly disappearing species that is a candidate for Endangered Species Act protection, throughout their range, especially wherever they exist in easily accessible streams on public lands.
