America's Wetland

Roy T. Sawyer

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The geologically ancient Tidewater region of southeastern Virginia and northeasternNorth Carolina rests precariously atop millions...

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The geologically ancient Tidewater region of southeastern Virginia and northeasternNorth Carolina rests precariously atop millions of years of erosion from the nearby AppalachianMountains. An immense wetland at near sea level, it is host to every conceivable body of freshwater, ranging from brooding swamps and large hidden lakes to sluggish blackwater rivers andbrackish sounds (one of which was so large an early explorer thought he had found the PacificOcean). In this engaging book, biologist and Tidewater native Roy T. Sawyer delivers an ecohistoryof this unique waterland whose wind-driven tides cover a rich human and naturalpast.Jutting prominently into the Atlantic, this wetland is the final stop for the warmthof the Gulf Stream before it is deflected from the American mainland. At the top of a narrow, warmcoastal strip, it provides an ideal home for a vast array of animal and plant life, includingprodigious numbers of reptiles (such as the world's northernmost population of alligators) andoverwintering waterfowl. It is also home to the oldest known living trees east of the RockyMountains. The climate and geography made the area a natural choice for very early humanhabitation--as far back as the last ice age, when the region was a rich oasis just south ofa veritable tundra.In examining the impact of humans upon this environment, andvice-versa, Sawyer reveals how our alarming shortsightedness has produced a fragile andendangered present. Although human manipulation started here as early as ten thousand years ago(coinciding with extinction of mammoths and other megafauna), the environment has been altered mostradically over only the last one hundred years, particularly in regard to land drainage,deforestation, overfishing, and pollution.The author provides an authoritative overview ofthe human impact on these wetlands and suggests ways in which we might still salvage them. In sodoing, he explores the effects of hurricanes, droughts, forest fires, and ice ages of thepast--and anticipates, in this age of global warming, natural events that may be still tocome.