The rare type of freshwater bog shares space with red wolves and bomb targets on the Albemarle-Pamlico Peninsula in North Carolina.
Where can you find rare shrub bogs, red wolves, black bears, bomb targets, ghost forests, and salt water intrusion in one place? Answer: North Carolina’s marshy Albemarle-Pamlico Peninsula, home of Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge.
The Operational Land Imager (OLI) on Landsat 8 acquired this natural-color image of the refuge on November 25, 2019. The geometric patterns in the middle of the image are caused by the layout of roads, drainage canals, and targets within Dare County Bombing Range, a military site managed by the U.S. Navy and U.S. Air Force.
The bombing range and surrounding wildlife refuge protect an unusual freshwater shrub bog habitat called pocosin. The name is derived from an Algonquian word meaning “swamp on a hill.” Pocosin vegetation grows on slightly elevated patches of peat, a carbon-rich type of soil that sops up rain water and slowly releases it over time.
The refuge is home to the world’s only population of red wolves. Though the species was declared extinct in the wild in 1980, biologists began to transfer red wolves bred in captivity to the refuge in 1987 in an attempt to reestablish a wild population.
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Image via NASA Earth Observatory
