Seven Islands Provides Countless Resources

Walking the 300-plus acres of Knox County’s Seven Islands Wildlife Refuge is like taking a step back in time. The untouched expanse of fields, hills and forests alongside the French Broad River, dotted with historic barns and farmhouses and teemed with diverse plant and animal life, preserves a panoramic view of the East Tennessee countryside that has changed little in 100 years.

Although a golf course and luxury subdivision occupy adjacent hills in the same neighborhood, Seven Islands remains a remnant of the region’s rural and agricultural past, providing an untarnished escape from modern life.

Pete Clausen says that was his intent when he and his wife purchased 220 acres to safeguard the land, establishing the family’s Seven Islands Foundation land conservancy.

“It was threatened, the land was the site of an idea for a theme park, and subdivisions were sure to come,” he says. “I live on the south side of the river on one of the islands, and we really think it is unique and should be protected and preserved.”

With a 2002 donation of the property from the foundation to Knox County, the park was created and a conservation easement secured, ensuring Seven Islands will remain a natural habitat and refuge for native wildlife and plant species.

Doug Bataille, senior director of Knox County Parks and Recreation, says the county has since developed a trail system stretching five miles, replanted the area with native grasses and renovated several of the structures on the property.

Last week the Legacy Parks Foundation, with a mission to increase open spaces and land for parks in the county, increased the refuge landscape with the purchase of 17 acres. Clausen says the two foundations  hope to continue to nourish the hidden treasure in East Knox County with the purchase of additional land and islands as they become available.

“When you look at river environments in the Southeast or in the Tennessee River system, much of it has been dammed, and there’s not a lot of the plain old river type environment,” says Clausen. “[But] at Seven Islands, the French Broad goes through an area where there is a ridge on both sides that creates pools, ripples and islands contributing to an interesting wildlife habitat.”

Although the county operates the land as a public park, its primary purpose is to serve as a wildlife refuge, and currently bicycle- and horseback-riding are prohibited, although hikers are allowed to bring leashed dogs.
“The intent is to keep the impact very low so the integrity of the wildlife is kept intact,” Bataille says.

The foundation hired Wayne Schacher in 2001 to conduct an ecological assessment of the property and its potential for conservation as a refuge. He continues to work for the foundation as its wildlife biologist on the property, and found the non-native fescue grass growing there was not inviting to birds and over-farming for hay production and pasturing required planting to increase the habitat’s diversity.

Schacher replaced the fescue with native warm-season grasses like switchgrass and Indian grass, planted 13,000 trees and installed a water control structure to encourage a wetland habitat. He has also constructed nearly 100 bird-nesting structures, with purple martins, common barn owls, wood ducks, eastern bluebird and tree swallows as frequent visitors.

Schacher and partners from the University of Tennessee forestry, wildlife and fisheries studies, TVA biologists and the East Tennessee Chapter of the Ornithological Society conduct species inventories to track the bird and fish population on the refuge. Their combined efforts have discovered a flourishing population of 45 fish species — more than can be found in all of Europe, Clausen says — and more than 160 bird species.

“The native grassland restoration was an important aspect in providing a vastly superior habitat for the bird community,” says Schacher. “It provides natural food sources and nesting and escape cover — the population is in decline because their habitat is lost when land is taken up with subdivisions, but if you supply the habitat, they will use it.”