GATLINBURG, Tenn. (WATE) — The Great Smoky Mountains National Park is urging visitors to stop stacking and moving rocks after an eastern hellbender was found crushed.

The park shared that the crushed hellbender, which is part of the largest species of salamanders in North America, was found under rocks that had been moved and stacked by park visitors.

Although making dams, channels or rock stacks can seem like harmless activities, for the wildlife that live under those rocks, it can be deadly. There are fragile ecosystems under the stones like nests, and shelters.

Hellbenders lay between 100 and 300 eggs under rocks in the late summer and early fall. When someone disturbs or moves a rock, they could unknowingly be the reason entire generations are lost in an instant, the park said.

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