LARGE ANIMALS IN THE PARK

The survey area has great diversity in vegetation types, and consequently has a wide variety of large wildlife species. Vegetation plays the major role in determining where animals live and range. Before humans introduced common reed, there was a much higher diversity of vegetation in the marshes, and a higher diversity of wildlife.

Soils influence the vegetation that grows on them and thus the wildlife that can be supported. Sandy outwash soils such as Manchester are easily dug into, and are used more readily by burrowing animals such as Eastern Moles. Soils that flood frequently, such as Rippowam and Wallkill, are not used by burrowing animals.

Mammals currently found in the area include: Raccoons, Eastern Cottontail, Gray Squirrel, House Mouse, White Footed Mouse, Norway Rat, Meadow Vole, Eastern Mole, Shorttail Shrew, Virginia Oppossum, and domestic cats and dogs that now live wild or roam in the park.

The most common birds are: American Crow, Fish Crow, Northern Harners, Red Tailed Hawk, Song Sparrow, Swamp Sparrow, House Finch, and Marsh Wren; various gulls such as Herring Gull, Ringbilled Gull and Great Black Backed Gull; various wading birds such as Great Egret, Snowy Egret, Glossy Ilois and Black-Crowned Night Heron.

The most common reptiles and amphibians are: Diamond-Backed Terrapin, Common Snapping Turtle, Green Frog, Leopard Frog, Garter Snake, Dekay's Snake and Banded Water Snake.

SMALL ORGANISMS IN THE SALT MARSHES

The west side of South Latourette Park, like many areas in New York City, is landfill on top of low-lying and wet areas. But since human influence does not halt natural processes, soils have developed even under these seemingly unnatural conditions. At the same time, processes of erosion and sedimentation have contributed to the emergence of marshes at the edge where land and estuary meet. This soil survey is characterizing the oftentimes unique soils which have developed in these and similar circumstances, from cellar hole debris, road cuts, ash, cinders, trash, and garbage disposal; in essence, from all the activities of human endeavor which produced a product that had no other use. But at the edge of this "reclaimed land," a dynamic saltmarsh ecosystem has developed, and this fact tells us something of the high quality of the local environment (Fig. 9).

Figure 9. The most biologically active and dynamic ecosystem in the area is seen when low tide exposes the mud flats and the Low Marsh saltmarsh. Nearby vegetation on Ipswich soils is Spartina, with Phragmites and black locust in the background on a former landfill.

Fiddler crab burrows can be seen in most every square yard of the higher marsh. These crabs are biological indicators that the water up in the creeks of South Latourette Park is clean enough for sensitive organisms which disappear quickly with oil spills, toxic dumping, or high concentrations of other pollutants. Crab burrows, like the roots of the cord grasses and peat in which they live, bring oxygen to the deep sediments, which helps to make saltmarshes one of the best biogeochemical filters and the most productive ecological systems in the world.

The mud and sediment of the marsh area is where much of the water cleaning capacity of these systems resides (Fig. 9). A handful of these deposits contains literally billions (to hundreds of billions) of bacteria. Nitrogen, present in super-abundance in the waters around the Fresh Kills landfill, is treated by the marshes in and around South Latourette Park. Each hour, a square yard turns between 1 and 10 milligrams of ammonia into nitrate and 10 to a 100 milligrams of nitrate into nitrogen gas which goes back into the atmosphere. Micrograms of hydrogen sulfide, the rotten egg smell of marshes, are also produced from sulfate each hour, and this will combine irreversibly with metals such as cadmium, copper, zinc and others protecting fish, shellfish and other wildlife from potentially toxic concentrations. Each day, each few square yards of marsh metabolizes a pound of carbon compounds (also called biochemical oxygen demand, or BOD). While these natural systems cannot reverse all environmental ills without our help, they do protect the great blue herons, egrets, and bittern seen in South Latourette Park, as well as the silverside minnows, killifish, and crabs on which they feed.