Threats to the Eastern Woodlands
Farming and urban growth
Residential and agricutural development is draining the last remaining marshlands and deep grass fields that the threatened short-eared owl calls home.
Disappearing salmon
Atlantic salmon populations are dropping in most Eastern Woodland rivers, as salmon mortality increases during their time time in the Atlantic Ocean. In 32 rivers in the Inner Bay of Fundy, the are already extirpated (locally extinct) or endangered.
Logging
Industrial forestry is removing the last remaining habitat for the Bicknell’s thrush, which only survives in the high elevation spruce and fir and low-lying coastal forests of the Eastern Woodlands in Canada and the U.S. Over much of the region, only scattered remnants of old-growth remain. Yet logging continues in these habitats, critical for so many species. New Brunswick’s Acadian Forest was once at least 50% old forest, but today only 4% is old-growth. In Nova Scotia, less than 1% of old-growth Acadian Forest remains.