The proposed designation of critical habitat includes portions at and above 5,400 feet in elevation at Grandfather Mountain, Mount Collins, Clingmans Dome, Mount Buckley, Mount LeConte, and Roan Mountain. The Spruce-fir moss spider is the first species to receive critical habitat protection in North Carolina since 1987.
Ozone is also a concern.
In the Black Mountains near Asheville, including Mount Mitchell, the mortality in long-studied plots reveal that over the last 18 years, about 95 percent of the mature trees have died. About one third of the dead conifers in the Blacks are Fraser firs, many of which have been attacked by the balsam wooly adelgid. Two thirds of the many thousands of dead trees are red spruce, a species that is unaffected by the balsam wooly adelgid. Because almost all tree species above 5,000 feet elevation, including the minority hardwoods, are in decline, many leading scientists suspect that air pollution is the most likely underlying cause for the observed habitat loss. Coal-fired power plants owned by the Tennessee Valley Authority, a federal agency, are suspected of causing much of the air pollution in the Southern Appalachians.