Toes In the Toe

Each year the US Fish and Wildlife Service’s Asheville Field Office helps us host our Toes in the Toe Festival. The event brings nearly every 5th grade student in North Carolina’s Yancey and Mitchell counties out to a river in their community. While at the river, they rotate through a series of stations, such as art, fish, watershed health, and macroinvertebrates. The streams of Yancey and Mitchell counties are a priority area for the Fish and Wildlife Service due to the presence of the endangered Appalachian elktoe mussel.

Photos by Gary Peeples, USFWS

Click on any photo to enlarge.