Chesapeake & Ohio Canal National Historical Park - Animals (U.S. National Park Service)

The C&O Canal provides important habitat to many animals, aquatic and terrestrial during breeding and migration seasons and throughout the year. Aquatic environments in the park include wetlands, streams, rivers, springs and seeps, and open water habitat in the sections of watered canal. These habitats support animals such as frogs, toads, salamanders, fish, freshwater mussels, beaver, and muskrat. Terrestrial habitats such as forests, open fields, rocky outcrops, developed, and transition habitats support many common Eastern Deciduous woodland species: deer, song birds, red and gray fox, raccoon, gray and fox squirrels, and a few uncommon species, black bear and bobcat. Bald eagle, a federally threatened species, nest here and are seen quite regularly. The linear shape of C&O Canal and the 184.5 trail along the riparian forest of the Potomac River provides a transportation corridor for wildlife as well as human hikers and bicyclists. Corridors of unfragmented habitat are important for the preservation of biodiversity, allowing for the movement of species between areas of higher quality or preferred habitat. Additionally, larger blocks of parkland of 100-500 acres provide important protected habitat to wildlife. As our landscape becomes more developed or urbanized, corridors of contiguous, protected habitat will become increasingly important in the preservation of biodiversity and the maintenance of viable wildlife populations.