Discovering Alabama Wetlands [Hardcover]

This visually stunning portrait of Alabama's many diverse wetland habitats and their associated plants and animals is a passionate plea for their thoughtful care and protection.

Alabama could easily be called the Aquatic State. It has an abundant supply of rain with countless streams, rivers, lakes, swamps, bogs, bottomlands, and bays that capture and channel this freshwater. An estimated 20 percent of the nations total freshwater works its way through this small physical land area that ranges from the temperate foothills of the Appalachians to the semitropical Gulf coast. Alabamas varied watery realms have harbored and continue to sustain a rich diversity of plant and animal species virtually unequaled on the continent.

WithDiscovering Alabama Wetlands,ecologist-educator Doug Phillips and photographer Robert Falls celebrate these productive natural habitats. One hundred color photographs and a data-rich text illustrate the natural beauty and serenity of these special places while explaining their vital role in filtering toxins and sediment from groundwater, nourishing aquifers, and preventing flooding. Special focus is given to key areasLittle River Canyon National Preserve atop Lookout Mountain; Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge in the backwater of the Tennessee River, a major attraction for wintering waterfowl; the 100-mile-long Sipsey River and Swamp, slowly wending its way through the central part of the state; and the vast Mobile-Tensaw Delta, a remarkable inland estuary that has been designated a World Wildlife Biosphere. But the authors also explore lesser coastal estuaries, pitcher-plant bogs, limestone seeps, and prairie marshes as important mini-habitats supporting rare and sometimes endemic species.

This book sounds a strong warning for fragile, dwindling wetlands. Phillips explains that more than half of the original area of Alabama wetlands? million acreshas already been lost to two centuries of excessive l“-