Churchill, SW Hudson Bay, Manitoba, Canada Photograph by © WWF-Canon/François PIERREL   Northern North America: Eastern Canada Boreal Forests/Taiga   144,300 square miles (373,700 square kilometers) -- about the size of Montana Relatively Stable/Intact

· Growing Northern Salt Marshes
· Special Features
· Did You Know?
· Wild Side
· Cause for Concern
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Growing Northern Salt Marshes

This ecoregion contains some of the most extensive and productive wetlands in boreal North America. They support huge breeding colonies of waterfowl, particularly snow geese. The ecoregion is the site of an unusual phenomenon called isostatic rebound. After the ice shield of the last Ice Age melted, the landmass -- finally relieved of this tremendous weight -- began rising at a geologically fast pace of up to one meter per century. As the land rose, more shoreline appeared around the bodies of water of this region. These raised beaches soon become covered with black spruce. Among the beach areas are bogs and peat plateaus. Tidal flats are extensive where the Hudson and James Bays meet.

Special Features

This ecoregion supports the world's southernmost populations of polar bears.

	Arctic foxes have some of the densest fur on Earth. Their coat is greyish-brown in the summer and pure white in winter. They have shorter legs and smaller ears than other species of fox, adaptations that avoid heat loss in the cold winters of this ecoregion.

Wild Side

South of the James Bay are mixed species forests, including white and black spruce, tamarack, balsam fir, quaking aspen, and paper birch. Wet fens support dense growths of sedges, mosses, and lichens. Shrubs include dwarf birch, willow, and northern Labrador tea. The wetlands that cover 50-75 percent of this ecoregion support snow geese, Canada geese, tundra swans, black ducks, sea ducks, and shorebirds. Other wildlife of the area includes caribou, snowshoe hares, arctic foxes, lynx, ruffed grouse, willow ptarmigan, black bears, wolves, moose, beluga whales, and seals.

Cause for Concern

An amazing 99 percent of the ecoregion remains intact. But threats do exist, including hydroelectric developments, particularly in the James Bay area. Fly-in hunt camps need to be carefully monitored to ensure that game animals are taken at sustainable levels. The growing tourism trade may also affect wildlife and habitat. Persistent pollutants, carried in by air currents and deposited by precipitation, are increasingly found in wildlife such as polar bears.

For more information on this ecoregion, go to the World Wildlife Fund Scientific Report.