The New Jersey Pinelands (also known as the
New Jersey Pine Barrens) consists of over one million acres located at the Southeast corner of the state. It extends Southward
into Cape May and touches east up to the edge of the Jersey Shore. This unique forest covers seven counties and accounts for
22 percent of New Jersey's land area.
Its
biodiversity includes more than 850 species of plants and trees, including many species of colorful orchids and carnivorous
plants. Swamps, freshwater marshes, and stands of hardwood trees marble through the Pinelands. It includes 12,000 acres of
a pygmy forest, an unusual stand of dwarf pine and dwarf oak trees most less than ten feet tall.
It
is mostly populated by several species of Pine trees (pitch pine, short leaf pine, and scrub pine). Its many Oak tree
species include black-jack oak and chestnut oak. Other trees of the Pinelands include red maple, atlantic white cedar, and
tupelo. Its dense ground vegetation consists mostly of huckleberry, high bush wild blueberry, mountain laurel, and wild american
cranberry.
Among its many rivers, the Great Egg Harbor River and the Maurice River are both designated
by the National Park Service as part of the National Wild and Scenic River System.
Great Egg Harbor River Maurice River
The Pinelands has numerous
streams, lakes, ponds, rural towns, historic villages, and cultivated cranberry bogs. Its blueberry farms supply 22% of the
nation’s blueberries.
In the early 1800s industries in the NJ Pine Forests produced lumber from its
trees, iron from its peat bogs, and glass from its sands. These early industries died out and left the ruins and ghost towns,
many of which are still intact today and serve as tourist attractions. The abandoned blast furnaces, iron and glass factories,
along with the haunting nature of the New Jersey Pine Barrens fired the imagination of many Pinelands people to give rise
to many local legends including the "Jersey Devil."
Animals
that inhabit the Pinelands include bald eagles, red tailed hawks, peregrine falcons, screech owls, white tailed deer, back
bear, flying squirrels, almost sixty species of amphibians and reptiles, and over ninety species of freshwater fish.
Its most famous resident is the Pine Barrens tree frog - hyla andersoni.
The NJ Pine Barrens has over 200 resort areas for activities that include camping, hiking,
birding, canoeing, kayaking, freshwater fishing, and mountain biking.
