Response to an Eastern Shore without Humans

Special to the CC Mirror, Mr. Cornweller plays a game, and completes a vision of the model.

An interesting concept. I’ll take that challenge, but for my vision to be complete, we’d have to include both western shore and Eastern Shore. And I envision the area would include one hundred and fifty mile people buffer encompassing the entire Chesapeake Bay region. Well, for starters, the cleanliness of the bay would dramatically increase in very short order. A major storm would only help to stabilize and cleanse the bay even quicker. Thus, eel grass and the life forms that take to that environment would start to make a comeback in a big way. Once that aspect of the food chain is re-established, then the larger creatures would thrive as well. I dare say, within just a few short years, say five, the bay would possibly be at the levels fishery wise, that were seen as late as the early eighteen hundreds. To say fishing would be good, well, would be an understatement.

Also, without the hand of man scraping, hacking, cutting, poisoning and tearing at the land side of the Eastern Shore, fields would begin to fill in with scrub brush and volunteer timber. The lands (still numerous-thank god) that are rich with third or fourth growth timber (but who’s counting?) would continue to thrive where as some trees may make that sixty to eighty foot height again and maybe even reach over a hundred or so in time. The smell of the pines would be so strong, that four or five miles offshore on the Oceanside with a westerly prevailing wind you would still catch their fragrance. The woods would abound with deer, rabbit, squirrel, coyote, fox, dog, bobcats, possibly bear and perhaps a eastern cougar or two. The birds in the air would be numerous, too many to count. The marshlands would be teeming with a litany of waterfowl. Just the calls of the geese alone would be deafening.

Muskrats, beaver, otter, and many other marsh creatures would abound again. In less than a hundred years, a good percentage of homes and stores would be completely returned to the earth. Only the foundations and cinderblock and brick buildings would be a sign that man had been here. The aquifer will have cleaned itself and possibly artisan wells would reappear in the low places. Lakes, and woodland streams would be drinkable again.

And lastly, with the tree growth and lack of development, the shoreline would be less prone to erosion and loss to the rising tide. And though the tide will rise and eventually the entire Eastern Shore will one day be under water (I am not seeing you guys wrapping a wall around the entire peninsula in the next hundred years) the rate of water inflow would be dramatically curtailed.

Or…you can just imagine how pristine this entire area was five hundred years ago. Fast forward until now and ask yourself, what have we contributed and how has it effected the ecology of the area? I think you know my answer to that.

Chas Cornweller