Pine Barrens (New Jersey) - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Pine Barrens, also known as the Pinelands, is a heavily forested area of coastal plain

Coastal plain

A coastal plain is an area of flat, low-lying land adjacent to a seacoast and separated from the interior by other features. One of the world's longest coastal plains is located in eastern South America. The southwestern coastal plain of North America is notable for its species diversity...

stretching across southern New Jersey

South Jersey

South Jersey comprises the southern portions of the U.S. state of New Jersey between the lower Delaware River and the Atlantic Ocean. The designation is a colloquial one, reflecting not only geographical but perceived cultural differences from the northern part of the state, with no official...

. The name "pine barrens

Pine barrens

Pine barrens, pine plains, sand plains, or pinelands occur throughout the northeastern U.S. from New Jersey to Maine as well as the Midwest and Canada....

" refers to the area's sandy, acidic, nutrient-poor soil, to which the crops originally imported by European settlers didn't take well. These uncommon conditions enable the Pine Barrens to support a unique and diverse spectrum of plant life, including orchids and carnivorous plant

Carnivorous plant

Carnivorous plants are plants that derive some or most of their nutrients from trapping and consuming animals or protozoans, typically insects and other arthropods. Carnivorous plants appear adapted to grow in places where the soil is thin or poor in nutrients, especially nitrogen, such as acidic...

s. The area is also notable for its populations of rare pygmy Pitch Pine

Pitch Pine

The Pitch Pine, Pinus rigida, is a small-to-medium sized pine, native to eastern North America. This species occasionally hybridizes with other pine species such as Loblolly Pine , Shortleaf Pine , and Pond Pine The Pitch Pine, Pinus rigida, is a small-to-medium sized (6-30 meters or 20-100 feet)...

s and other plant species that depend on the frequent fires of the Pine Barrens to reproduce. The sand that composes much of the area's soil is referred to by the locals as sugar sand

Sugar sand

Sugar sand, found in some areas of the Eastern United States, is a fine silt made up of ultrafine mineral sand mixed with a large percentage of organic granules. Because of its lightness it can easily form quicksand in hollows. In New Jersey, quicksand is often referred to as "sugar sand." Even...

.

Despite its proximity to Philadelphia and New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

, and the fact that the Garden State Parkway

Garden State Parkway

The Garden State Parkway is a 172.4-mile limited-access toll parkway that stretches the length of New Jersey from the New York line at Montvale, New Jersey, to Cape May at New Jersey's southernmost tip. Its name refers to New Jersey's nickname, the "Garden State." Most New Jersey residents refer...

and Atlantic City Expressway

Atlantic City Expressway

The Atlantic City Expressway is a , controlled-access toll road in New Jersey, managed and operated by the South Jersey Transportation Authority...

run through it, the Pine Barrens remains largely rural and undeveloped. The Pine Barrens also helps recharge the 17 trillion gallon Kirkwood-Cohansey aquifer

Kirkwood-Cohansey aquifer

The Kirkwood-Cohansey aquifer system is in the New Jersey Pine Barrens. It covers approximately and receives about 44 inches of precipitation each year. About fifty percent of this water is transpired by vegetation or evaporates back into the atmosphere. A small amount enters streams and rivers as...

containing some of the purest water in the United States. As a result of all these factors, 1.1 million acres (4,500 km²) of the Pine Barrens were designated the Pinelands National Reserve (the nation's first National Reserve) in 1978, and it was designated a United Nations International Biosphere Reserve in 1988. Development in the Pinelands National Reserve is strictly controlled by an independent state/federal agency called the New Jersey Pinelands Commission. The Pinelands Reserve contains the Wharton

Wharton State Forest

Wharton State Forest is a state park in the U.S. state of New Jersey. The largest single tract of land in the state park system of New Jersey, it encompasses approximately of the Pinelands northwest of Hammonton, in Burlington, Camden, and Atlantic counties. The entire park is located within ...

, Brendan T. Byrne

Brendan T. Byrne State Forest

The Brendan T. Byrne State Forest is a 34,725 acre area in the New Jersey Pine Barrens in Burlington and Ocean Counties, New Jersey.-Description:...

(formerly Lebanon), and Bass River

Bass River State Forest

Bass River State Forest is a 23,563-acre state park in Burlington County, New Jersey, United States. The park, named for the Bass River which crosses through it, shelters a portion of the environmentally sensitive Pine Barrens but also provides a variety of recreational resources to vistiors...

state forests.

Author John McPhee

John McPhee

John Angus McPhee is an American Pulitzer Prize-winning writer, widely considered one of the pioneers of creative nonfiction....

wrote one of his early books, The Pine Barrens
The Pine Barrens (book)
The Pine Barrens is a 1968 book by John McPhee about the history, people and biology of the New Jersey Pine Barrens that originally appeared in The New Yorker in 1967.The book is an early example of McPhee's acclaimed literary nonfiction style...

, on the history and ecology of the region in 1967.

History

During colonial times, the Pine Barrens was home to various industries. Bog iron

Bog iron

Bog iron refers to impure iron deposits that develop in bogs or swamps by the chemical or biochemical oxidation of iron carried in the solutions. In general, bog ores consist primarily of iron oxyhydroxides, commonly goethite...

was mined from bogs, streams, and waterways, and was worked in furnaces at Batsto, Lake Atsion

Lake Atsion

Lake Atsion is a lake in Wharton State Forest in the Pine Barrens, in Burlington County, New Jersey. The lake is part of the Mullica River. The lake offers boating, hiking, fishing, swimming and camping facilities, and cross-country skiing in the Winter....

, Ferrago, Hanover, and several other locations. Iron from these early furnaces was instrumental in supplying the American military with weapons and camp tools during the American Revolution

American Revolution

The American Revolution was the political upheaval during the last half of the 18th century in which thirteen colonies in North America joined together to break free from the British Empire, combining to become the United States of America...

and the War of 1812

War of 1812

The War of 1812 was a military conflict fought between the forces of the United States of America and those of the British Empire. The Americans declared war in 1812 for several reasons, including trade restrictions because of Britain's ongoing war with France, impressment of American merchant...

and the Second Barbary War

Second Barbary War

The Second Barbary War , also known as the Algerine or Algerian War, was the second of two wars fought between the United States and the Ottoman Empire's North African regencies of Tripoli, Tunis, and Algeria known collectively as the Barbary states. The war between the Barbary States and the U.S...

. For example, Commodore Stephen Decatur, Jr. sailed to Algiers armed with 24-pound cannons that had been cast at Hanover in 1814. The bog iron industry fell off in the mid-19th century when iron ore could be mined more cheaply in Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania

The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...

. Other industries such as paper mills, sawmills, and gristmills rose and fell throughout the years. Smaller industries such as charcoal-making and glassmaking also were attempted and met with varying degrees of success. Over time, however, the forest reclaimed almost all traces of the Pine Barrens' industrial past. Ghost town

Ghost town

A ghost town is an abandoned town or city. A town often becomes a ghost town because the economic activity that supported it has failed, or due to natural or human-caused disasters such as floods, government actions, uncontrolled lawlessness, war, or nuclear disasters...

s—remnants of these industries—can still be found at various locations, and one, Batsto Village, has been restored to its mid-19th century state.

The Pine Barrens were home to the pseudonymous Kallikaks

The Kallikak Family

The Kallikak Family: A Study in the Heredity of Feeble-Mindedness was a 1912 book by the American psychologist and eugenicist Henry H. Goddard. The work was an extended case study of Goddard's for the inheritance of "feeble-mindedness," a general category referring to a variety of mental...

, a poor, backwoods family who were held up as a case study

Case study

A case study is an intensive analysis of an individual unit stressing developmental factors in relation to context. The case study is common in social sciences and life sciences. Case studies may be descriptive or explanatory. The latter type is used to explore causation in order to find...

in genetic inferiority by eugenicists

Eugenics

Eugenics is the "applied science or the bio-social movement which advocates the use of practices aimed at improving the genetic composition of a population", usually referring to human populations. The origins of the concept of eugenics began with certain interpretations of Mendelian inheritance,...

in the early 20th century. Today, it is understood that the facts in the Kallikaks study were misrepresented, including doctored pictures to make them appear "stupider". For years, residents of the area were called "Pineys", by outsiders, as a derogatory term. However, today, many Pinelands residents are proud of both the name and the land on which they live.

On July 12, 1928, Mexican aviator and national hero Emilio Carranza

Emilio Carranza

Captain Emilio Carranza Rodríguez was a noted Mexican aviator and national hero, nicknamed the "Lindbergh of Mexico". He was killed while returning from a historic goodwill flight from Mexico City to the United States....

crashed and was killed in the Pinelands while returning from a historic goodwill flight from Mexico City

Mexico City

Mexico City is the Federal District , capital of Mexico and seat of the federal powers of the Mexican Union. It is a federal entity within Mexico which is not part of any one of the 31 Mexican states but belongs to the federation as a whole...

to the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. Flying back from Long Island, he encountered a thunderstorm

Thunderstorm

A thunderstorm, also known as an electrical storm, a lightning storm, thundershower or simply a storm is a form of weather characterized by the presence of lightning and its acoustic effect on the Earth's atmosphere known as thunder. The meteorologically assigned cloud type associated with the...

and crashed in Burlington County

Burlington County, New Jersey

There were 154,371 households out of which 34.30% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 57.70% were married couples living together, 10.90% had a female householder with no husband present, and 27.70% were non-families. 22.90% of all households were made up of individuals and 8.50% had...

. A 12 ft (3.6 m) monument identifies the location of the crash.

Efforts to preserve the Pine Barrens

Despite rapid urbanization of its surrounding land, the Pine Barrens remained largely untouched because its sandy soil was unsuitable for growing most crops, and its iron and charcoal deposits couldn't compete with more readily accessible deposits elsewhere. In 1969, the Pine Barrens averaged a density of 15 people per square mile, compared with 1000 people per square mile in the lands bordering it. There were concerns for the possible destruction of the Pine Barrens by urban sprawl

Urban sprawl

Urban sprawl, also known as suburban sprawl, is a multifaceted concept, which includes the spreading outwards of a city and its suburbs to its outskirts to low-density and auto-dependent development on rural land, high segregation of uses Urban sprawl, also known as suburban sprawl, is a...

. Amid those concerns was a plan for the construction of a massive jetport and planned city in the Pine Barrens to alleviate congestion in other major airports. The plan was made more attractive by the cheap cost of land and lower incidence of fog in the area.

The New Jersey Pinelands National Reserve

New Jersey Pinelands National Reserve

New Jersey Pinelands National Reserve preserves the New Jersey Pine Barrens.The Pinelands is a unique location of historic villages and berry farms amid the vast oak-pine forests , extensive wetlands, and diverse species of plants and animals of the Atlantic coastal pine barrens ecoregion...

, the country's first National Reserve, was created by Congress under the National Parks and Recreation Act of 1978. The New Jersey Pinelands National Reserve contains approximately 1100000 acres (4,451.5 km²) of land, and occupies 22% of New Jersey's land area. The Pinelands National Reserve was created from the land of seven New Jersey counties. The reserve contains Wharton State Forest

Wharton State Forest

, Brendan T. Byrne State Forest

Brendan T. Byrne State Forest

The Brendan T. Byrne State Forest is a 34,725 acre area in the New Jersey Pine Barrens in Burlington and Ocean Counties, New Jersey.-Description:...

and Bass River State Forest

Bass River State Forest

. The Pinelands was designated a U.S. Biosphere Reserve by UNESCO

UNESCO

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations...

in 1983 and an International Biosphere Reserve in 1988. Following many years of work to preserve the Pine Barrens and educate visitors, Howard P. Boyd

Howard P. Boyd

Howard P. Boyd is an entomologist, botanist, editor, teacher, photographer, filmmaker, writer, and naturalist, best known for his close association with the Pine Barrens of New Jersey spanning more than 70 years.- Background :...

and his wife continue to live within the Protection Area of the Pinelands National Reserve

New Jersey Pinelands National Reserve

Jersey Devil

The Pine Barrens gave rise to the legend of, and are well known mostly because of the Jersey Devil

Jersey Devil

The Jersey Devil is a legendary creature or cryptid said to inhabit the Pine Barrens of Southern New Jersey, United States. The creature is often described as a flying biped with hooves, but there are many variations...

, said to have been born to a local woman named Mrs. Leeds in an area known as "Leeds Point" in 1735. It was said that he was her 13th child and that being an unlucky number he was cursed. Another story says that it was born a hideous monster which attacked the mother and nurses, before flying up and out the chimney and disappearing into the Barrens. Most alleged sightings of the legendary Devil have occurred in or near the Pine Barrens.

Plants and animals

The Pine Barrens comprise a major part of the Atlantic coastal pine barrens

Atlantic coastal pine barrens

The Atlantic coastal pine barrens is a temperate coniferous forests ecoregion of the northeastern United States.-Setting:This ecoregion covers a disjunct area of 8,975 km² including the New Jersey Pine Barrens on the coastal plain of New Jersey, and smaller areas of southern Long Island in New...

ecoregion

Ecoregion

An ecoregion , sometimes called a bioregion, is an ecologically and geographically defined area that is smaller than an ecozone and larger than an ecosystem. Ecoregions cover relatively large areas of land or water, and contain characteristic, geographically distinct assemblages of natural...

. The forest communities are strongly influenced by fire, varying from dwarf pine forests less than 4 feet (121.9 cm) tall where fires are frequent, to pine forests, to oak forests where fires are rare. Dark swamps of Atlantic white cedar grow along the waterways.

The Pine Barrens are home to at least 39 species of mammal

Mammal

Mammals are members of a class of air-breathing vertebrate animals characterised by the possession of endothermy, hair, three middle ear bones, and mammary glands functional in mothers with young...

s, over 300 species of bird

Bird

Birds are feathered, winged, bipedal, endothermic , egg-laying, vertebrate animals. Around 10,000 living species and 188 families makes them the most speciose class of tetrapod vertebrates. They inhabit ecosystems across the globe, from the Arctic to the Antarctic. Extant birds range in size from...

s, 59 reptile

Reptile

Reptiles are members of a class of air-breathing, ectothermic vertebrates which are characterized by laying shelled eggs , and having skin covered in scales and/or scutes. They are tetrapods, either having four limbs or being descended from four-limbed ancestors...

and amphibian

Amphibian

Amphibians , are a class of vertebrate animals including animals such as toads, frogs, caecilians, and salamanders. They are characterized as non-amniote ectothermic tetrapods...

species, and 91 fish

Fish

Fish are a paraphyletic group of organisms that consist of all gill-bearing aquatic vertebrate animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish, as well as various extinct related groups...

species. At least 43 species are considered threatened and endangered by the NJ Division of Fish and Wildlife, including the rare eastern timber rattlesnakes (Crotalus horridus
Crotalus horridus
Crotalus horridus, the timber rattlesnake, is a species of venomous pitviper found in the eastern United States. This is the only rattlesnake species in most of the populous northeastern United States. No subspecies are currently recognized....

) and bald eagles.

Believed to have been extirpated

Local extinction

Local extinction, also known as extirpation, is the condition of a species which ceases to exist in the chosen geographic area of study, though it still exists elsewhere...

from the state by 1970 due to destruction of its territory and human encroachment, the bobcat

Bobcat

The bobcat is a North American mammal of the cat family Felidae, appearing during the Irvingtonian stage of around 1.8 million years ago . With twelve recognized subspecies, it ranges from southern Canada to northern Mexico, including most of the continental United States...

gained legal protection in 1972, being classified as a game species with a closed season and in 1991 it was added to the list of endangered species in New Jersey. Reintroduction of the species occurred between 1978 and 1982 when 24 bobcats from Maine were released into the northern portion of the state where, since 1996, they are being monitored by biologists with the aid of GPS transmitters in order to determine habitat ranges and preferences.

In addition, a scent post survey in 1995 proved bobcat presence in four northern counties and there have been reliable sightings of the bobcat in 9 additional (mostly southern) counties, including those encompassing large swaths of the Pine Barrens and those counties skirting it, namely: Atlantic

Atlantic County, New Jersey

-National protected areas:* Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge * Great Egg Harbor Scenic and Recreational River -Demographics:...

, Burlington

Burlington County, New Jersey

, Cape May

Cape May County, New Jersey

-Climate:Being the southernmost point in New Jersey, Cape May has fairly mild wintertime temperatures. Contrary to that, the summertime has lower temperatures than most places in the state, making the county a popular place to escape the heat. It is in zone 7a/7b, which is the same as parts of...

, Cumberland

Cumberland County, New Jersey

Cumberland County is a county located in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2010 Census, the population is 156,898. Its county seat is Bridgeton. Cumberland County is named for Prince William, Duke of Cumberland....

, Ocean

Ocean County, New Jersey

-Demographics:As of the census of 2000, there were 510,916 people, 200,402 households, and 137,876 families residing in the county. The population density was 803 people per square mile . There were 248,711 housing units at an average density of 151/km²...

, and Salem

Salem County, New Jersey

-Demographics:As of the census of 2000, there were 64,285 people, 24,295 households, and 17,370 families residing in the county. The population density was 190 people per square mile . There were 26,158 housing units at an average density of 77 per square mile...

counties.

Status

The only industries that still thrive in the Pine Barrens are related to agriculture and tourism. The Pine Barrens is the reason New Jersey grows the third-highest number of cranberries

Cranberry

Cranberries are a group of evergreen dwarf shrubs or trailing vines in the subgenus Oxycoccus of the genus Vaccinium. In some methods of classification, Oxycoccus is regarded as a genus in its own right...

in the country, mostly attributed to the areas around Chatsworth, including Whitesbog which is north of Chatsworth. The first cultivated blueberries were developed in the Pine Barrens in 1916 through the work of Elizabeth White

Elizabeth Coleman White

Elizabeth Coleman White was a New Jersey agricultural specialist who collaborated with Frank Coville to develop and commercialize a cultivated blueberry. -Biography:...

of Whitesbog, and blueberry farms are now almost as common as cranberry bog

Bog

A bog, quagmire or mire is a wetland that accumulates acidic peat, a deposit of dead plant material—often mosses or, in Arctic climates, lichens....

s. Most blueberry farms are found in and around the town of Hammonton

Hammonton, New Jersey

Hammonton is a town in Atlantic County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the town population was 14,791. It is located directly between Philadelphia and the resort town of Atlantic City, along a former route of the Pennsylvania Railroad currently used by New Jersey...

. The Pine Barrens are also at risk from increasing development and suburbanization of the area. A threatened species of frog, the Pine Barrens Tree Frog

Pine Barrens Tree Frog

The Pine Barrens Tree Frog, Hyla andersonii, is a species of New World tree frog.It is threatened by habitat loss.-Physical characteristics:...

, has a disjunct population there.

Forest fires

In the Pine Barrens, forest fire

Wildfire

A wildfire is any uncontrolled fire in combustible vegetation that occurs in the countryside or a wilderness area. Other names such as brush fire, bushfire, forest fire, desert fire, grass fire, hill fire, squirrel fire, vegetation fire, veldfire, and wilkjjofire may be used to describe the same...

has been a common occurrence ever since it was first inhabited by people. Fire has played a major ecological role in the Pinelands, and the ecotypes "suggest that short fire intervals may have been typical in the Pine Plains for many centuries, or millennia." Although natural fires have occurred, evidence shows that most fires in the region are of human origin. The fire regime

Fire regime

A fire regime is the pattern, frequency and intensity of the bushfires and wildfires that prevails in an area. It is an integral part of fire ecology, and renewal for certain types of ecosystems. If fires are too frequent, plants may be killed before they have matured, or before they have set...

before European settlement is poorly understood, although it is known that the Lenape tribes burned the woods in the spring and fall to improve plant yields and hunting conditions. The Pine Barrens, with its sandy soil, did not attract a permanent agriculture population (whose main interest would have been to establish permanent boundaries for forest clearance). Instead, the area's sparse population encouraged a longlasting attitude that forest fires should be set for local benefit—even on the lands of others. It was profitable for charcoal burners to set fires deliberately, in order to make the trees useless for any purpose other than charcoal making, then purchase the trees for a discount.

Forest fires play an important role in regulating the growth of plants in the Pine Barrens. Frequent light fires tend to reduce the amount of undergrowth and promote the growth of mature trees. Forest fire is also a reason why the Pitch Pine is dominant in the Pine Barrens. Pitch Pines are common because of their ability to resist and recover from fire by resprouting directly through their bark (something very unusual for pines) and by serotinous

Serotiny

Serotiny is an ecological adaptation exhibited by some seed plants, in which seed release occurs in response to an environmental trigger, rather than spontaneously at seed maturation. The most common and best studied trigger is fire, and the term serotiny is often used to refer to this specific case...

pine cones which open only after having been heated by a fire. The prevalence of forest fire allows the pitch pines to dominate over oaks, which by comparison are usually killed outright by a moderate or intense fire. High air temperatures and dry plant undergrowth contribute to the intensity of the fire. While severe fires are uncommon, severe fires at fairly frequent intervals can eliminate species that do not bear seed at an early age. Frequent killing fires keep an area covered with small sprouts.

Efforts to battle forest fire attract debate over how to best preserve the Pine Barrens because of fire's danger to property and inhabitants. Preservationists argue that eliminating forest fires would cause the Pine Barrens to become dominated by oak trees. A few areas which had previously consisted of scrub and pitch pine have already become dominated by oak trees due to the lesser frequency of forest fires.

Governance

History and ecology

Non-profit organizations and other local interests

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