Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Regardless, wolves and cougars—both victims of hunting pressure—have been replaced ecologically by the
eastern coyote as a top predator. Coyotes have made a century-long migration from western North America,
arriving in northern New England in the 1930s and southern New England two decades later, and finally com-
pleting their cross-continental odyssey in the late 1970s by crossing the isthmus of the Tantramar Marsh into
Nova Scotia. Since then, they have dispersed into all available habitats, even crossing the ice of the Strait of
Belle Isle onto the island of Newfoundland.
The success of the coyote can be attributed to a number of factors. Coyotes are omnivores and have even
been discovered to subsist on kelp and seaweed on offshore islands. Their preferred food is small mammals,
especially red squirrels and snowshoe hares, but they also prey on mice and voles, and when necessary, like
foxes, they eat fruit and insects. They are highly social animals and will hunt in packs or as mated pairs and
will kill deer if snow conditions allow. Their two-parent system of raising young produces litters of five to
nine. Coyotes' mythical cleverness may also contribute to their uncanny success. They work in pairs when
stalking rodents, one approaching from a conspicuous position, the other stalking from behind. But extrinsic
factors have also favored the spread of coyotes in the eastern woods. The extirpation, or suppression, of east-
ern Canadian wolves has allowed coyotes to move into territory where wolves once held sway. Although
wolves and coyotes are archrivals, as canids they are able to interbreed, and it is believed that coyotes have
picked up wolf genes on their travels. As a result, the eastern coyotes are significantly larger than their western
counterparts.
Deer have also moved to the north, where they replaced woodland caribou and have enjoyed uncommon
success. Both moose and caribou were the most abundant large game animals in the eastern forest at the time
of European colonization. Hunting seriously depleted both species, but caribou also suffered from the loss of
their principal food, white reindeer moss, which was destroyed by widespread fires. Moose fared somewhat
better until deer burgeoned in their traditional territory. The deer brought with them a parasitic brainworm,
Paralephostrongylus tenuis, which, though harmless to them, was fatal to both moose and caribou. Deer popu-
lations exploded in the early 20th century with the large-scale removal of forests by clear-cutting, which re-
leased a surfeit of hardwood browse. Their numbers have grown to the degree that they are considered pests in
some areas of the eastern forest, such as Pennsylvania, where they prevent forest regeneration by browsing
seedlings. Black bears may also have been affected by changes in the forest composition. Bears would nor-
mally eat large amounts of fat-rich beech nuts before hibernation, but the loss of beech trees to disease may
have affected the productivity of bears in northeastern forests.
Oak Domain: Northeastern Coastal Forest
The northeastern coastal forest is native to the Piedmont Plateau and the Atlantic Coastal Plain, spanning sev-
en states from northern Maryland to southern Maine. It is dominated by oak forests, including white, red,
black, scarlet, and chestnut oaks. Northern red oak is also found scattered throughout the New England/Acadi-
an Forest to the north and forms nearly pure stands on wetter sites, such as river floodplains; the other species
are restricted to this region. The primary conifers in the region are white pine and hemlock, and pitch pine can
be found on sandy outwash sites. White pine were marked with the King's Broad Arrow as masts for British
naval ships, but white oak was the species most sought after by local shipwrights when they came to the con-
tinent. Oaks of various kinds form a belt that spans the temperate regions of the globe. The great oceangoing
ships of the Age of Discovery were framed entirely in oak and mostly planked in oak, and so it was in the New
World, where oaks also were found. The uss Constitution, dubbed “Old Ironsides,” had a hull of white oak so
hard that it reputedly rejected British cannonballs during the War of 1812.
