The Animals Of Maryland

Section 01

America In Miniature, Built Around One Bay

Maryland is often called America in Miniature, and for wildlife the nickname is earned. In under 250 miles from west to east the state runs from Appalachian spruce bog at 3,360 feet on Backbone Mountain to Atlantic barrier island. Very few states pack that many habitat types into so little space.

But the organising feature is the Chesapeake Bay. It is the largest estuary in the United States, roughly 200 miles long, fed by more than 150 rivers and streams draining six states. It is also unusually shallow, averaging about 21 feet, which means sunlight reaches the bottom across much of it and underwater grass beds can grow. Those grass beds are the nursery for blue crab, striped bass, and most of the bay's fish.

The bay's story over the last century is decline and partial repair. Nutrient runoff from farms, lawns, and sewage drove algal blooms that blocked light, killed the grass beds, and created summer dead zones with too little oxygen for fish. Oysters, which once filtered the entire bay's volume in a matter of days, fell to a small fraction of their historic numbers from overharvest and disease. Restoration has produced real gains in grass acreage and some crab years, though the system remains far from its historic state.

Maryland's other distinctive feature is Assateague Island, where the wild horses are the state's most photographed animals and also its most ecologically awkward, since they are feral livestock grazing a barrier island that evolved without them.

Section 02

Maryland's Official State Animals

The terrapin has a hard history. It was harvested heavily for terrapin soup, a 19th-century delicacy, to the point of severe depletion. Commercial harvest is now banned in Maryland, but terrapins still drown in crab pots, and bycatch reduction devices fitted to pots are the main tool for reducing those deaths.

Section 03

Habitats By Region, And Who Lives In Each

1. Allegheny Plateau and western mountains

The state's coldest corner, with red spruce, northern hardwood, and southern relicts of boreal bog at places like Cranesville Swamp and Finzel Swamp. Species here occur nowhere else in Maryland: snowshoe hare, northern flying squirrel, saw-whet owl, and Cheat Mountain salamander habitat nearby. Black bear are concentrated in Garrett and Allegany counties. See Appalachian Mountains.

2. Ridge and Valley and Blue Ridge

Folded ridges with oak-hickory forest, limestone valleys, and caves holding hibernating bats. Timber rattlesnake and copperhead both occur, along with bobcat, and the Potomac gorge below holds an exceptional concentration of rare species in a small area.

3. Piedmont and the urban corridor

Rolling hills between the Blue Ridge and the fall line, heavily developed along the Baltimore and Washington axis. Wildlife persists in stream valleys and parks: white-tailed deer at high suburban density, coyote which reached Maryland only in the 1970s, red fox, and beaver recolonising urban streams.

4. Chesapeake Bay and tidal marsh

The core of the state's wildlife value. Brackish and freshwater tidal marsh, underwater grass beds, mudflat, and thousands of miles of shoreline. Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge holds one of the largest breeding bald eagle concentrations on the East Coast, plus Delmarva fox squirrel, saltmarsh and seaside sparrows, black rail, and enormous wintering waterfowl numbers. Diamondback terrapin nest on sandy shores and osprey nest on nearly every channel marker.

5. Lower Eastern Shore and Pocomoke

Bald cypress swamp along the Pocomoke River at close to the northern limit of the type, plus loblolly pine and remnant Delmarva bays. Species include Delmarva fox squirrel, barking treefrog, carpenter frog, and prothonotary warbler.

6. Atlantic coast and Assateague

Barrier island, dune, and salt marsh. Piping plover and least tern nest on the beaches, loggerhead and leatherback sea turtles occur offshore, bottlenose dolphins feed nearshore in summer, and the Assateague wild horses graze the marsh and dune.

Section 04

The Chesapeake Bay Food Web

Understanding Maryland's wildlife means understanding four species and how they connect.

• Eastern oyster: a single adult filters up to 50 gallons of water a day. Historic populations were dense enough to filter the bay's entire volume in about a week. Overharvest, then the diseases MSX and Dermo, cut them to a small fraction of that. Oyster reefs are also physical habitat, so losing them removed structure that dozens of other species used. Sanctuary reefs and hatchery-based restoration are now rebuilding some tributaries.
• Underwater grasses: eelgrass and widgeon grass beds are the nursery for juvenile blue crab and a food source for waterfowl. They need clear water, so nutrient-driven algal blooms shade them out. Grass acreage has partially recovered from its 1980s low, and it is the single best indicator of bay health.
• Blue crab: the state crustacean and the bay's most valuable fishery. Juveniles shelter in grass beds; adults bury in mud through winter. Population swings sharply year to year, and the annual winter dredge survey drives management decisions.
• Striped bass: the state fish, called rockfish locally. The Chesapeake is the most important spawning ground on the Atlantic coast, producing a large share of the entire coastal population. A stock collapse led Maryland to impose a complete moratorium from 1985 to 1990, which worked and is cited as a model recovery, though the stock has declined again in recent years and is once more under restrictive management.

Section 05

Mammals Of Maryland

• White-tailed deer: abundant, with suburban densities high enough to alter forest understory and drive tick populations. Sika deer, an introduced Asian species released on the Eastern Shore in the early 1900s, are now established in the marshes there and nowhere else in the country at that scale.
• Black bear: recovered from near-extirpation to a population of several hundred to over a thousand in the western counties, with a regulated hunt since 2004.
• Delmarva fox squirrel: a large silvery squirrel endemic to the Delmarva Peninsula, federally endangered from 1967 and delisted in 2015 after habitat protection and translocation.
• Bobcat: present in the western half and slowly expanding east.
• Coyote: arrived only in the 1970s, the last state on the East Coast to be colonised, and now in every county.
• River otter, mink, muskrat, beaver, raccoon, opossum, striped skunk, red and gray fox, woodchuck, gray and fox squirrel, southern flying squirrel, eastern cottontail: all common. Muskrat trapping remains a cultural tradition on the Eastern Shore.
• Nutria: an invasive rodent that devastated Blackwater marsh. Maryland ran a systematic eradication campaign beginning in 2002 and declared the Chesapeake population eliminated in 2022, one of the few successful large-scale invasive mammal removals in the country.
• Bats: ten species, with northern long-eared and Indiana bats federally listed and severe declines from white-nose syndrome. See where bats live.
• Marine mammals: bottlenose dolphin in the bay and nearshore in summer, harbour and gray seals in winter, plus North Atlantic right whales and humpbacks migrating offshore.

Section 06

Birds Of Maryland

More than 450 species have been recorded in a small state, driven by the Atlantic Flyway and the bay.

• Waterfowl: the Chesapeake is one of the most important wintering areas on the Atlantic Flyway, holding canvasback, redhead, scaup, tundra swan, snow goose, and very large Canada goose numbers. Canvasback in particular concentrated here historically because of wild celery beds in the bay.
• Bald eagle and osprey: both recovered dramatically after DDT. The Chesapeake now holds one of the densest breeding bald eagle populations in the country, and Blackwater refuge is a reliable place to see multiple birds at once.
• Marsh birds: saltmarsh sparrow, seaside sparrow, black rail (which has declined sharply and lost much of its Maryland high marsh), clapper and Virginia rails, and least bittern.
• Forest birds: cerulean warbler in western Maryland, worm-eating and hooded warblers, Kentucky warbler, and Swainson's warbler at the northern edge of its range in the Pocomoke.
• Shorebirds and beach nesters: piping plover, least tern, American oystercatcher, black skimmer, plus red knots using bay and coastal stopovers where horseshoe crabs spawn.

Section 07

Reptiles, Amphibians, And Fish

Maryland has around 30 reptile and 40 amphibian species. Two snakes are venomous.

Snakes: 27 species. The timber rattlesnake occurs in the western mountains and is uncommon, and the northern copperhead is more widespread but still not often seen. The rest are harmless, including eastern rat snake, black racer, northern water snake, corn snake, and eastern kingsnake.

Turtles: diamondback terrapin (the state reptile), bog turtle in a few calcareous fens, wood turtle, spotted turtle, eastern box turtle, red-bellied turtle, plus painted, map, mud, and snapping turtles and softshells.

Amphibians: Maryland's Appalachian corner holds unusual salamander diversity for a small state, including the Cheat Mountain and green salamanders nearby, plus hellbender in a few western streams, eastern tiger salamander (state endangered), marbled and spotted salamanders, four-toed salamander, and around 20 frog and toad species including barking treefrog and carpenter frog on the Eastern Shore.

Fish: striped bass, white perch, yellow perch, American shad, hickory shad, alewife, blueback herring, and Atlantic sturgeon all use the bay and its rivers. Atlantic sturgeon is federally endangered, and Maryland has documented a small spawning population in the Marshyhope Creek, a discovery that surprised biologists. Brook trout persist in cold western headwaters and are the state's only native trout.

Section 08

Dangerous Animals In Maryland

• Ticks: the leading wildlife-linked health risk. Maryland has high Lyme disease incidence, and lone star ticks also transmit ehrlichiosis and cause alpha-gal syndrome.
• White-tailed deer: thousands of vehicle collisions annually and the main host sustaining adult ticks.
• Copperhead and timber rattlesnake: the only venomous snakes, both uncommon. Bites are rare and rarely serious.
• Black bear: no fatal attacks in Maryland. Conflicts in the western counties involve garbage and bird feeders.
• Sea nettles: the bay's jellyfish are a genuine summer swimming nuisance across much of the mid and lower bay.
• Rabies: raccoons are the primary vector in Maryland, with skunks, foxes, and bats also involved.
• Assateague horses: they bite and kick, and visitor injuries occur every year from people approaching or feeding them.

Section 09

Endangered And Protected Species

Maryland's dominant threat is sea level rise, and it is not theoretical. The land around the Chesapeake is subsiding at the same time the ocean rises, so the effective rate is roughly double the global average. Blackwater refuge has already lost thousands of acres of marsh to open water, and Smith Island and other bay communities are shrinking. Marsh can migrate inland if there is room, but roads, farms, and development block it in many places. For black rail and saltmarsh sparrow, which nest just above normal high tide, that is an existential problem.

Section 10

Where To See Wildlife In Maryland

• Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge: the state's best all-round site, with dense bald eagles, Delmarva fox squirrels, wintering waterfowl, and a wildlife drive.
• Assateague Island National Seashore: wild horses, piping plovers, shorebirds, and dune habitat.
• Eastern Neck National Wildlife Refuge: upper bay waterfowl and tundra swans in winter.
• Deep Creek Lake and Swallow Falls, Garrett County: boreal relict habitat, snowshoe hare, and northern birds.
• Pocomoke River and Nassawango Creek: northern-limit cypress swamp by canoe.
• Patuxent Research Refuge: the first refuge established for wildlife research, with accessible trails near Washington.
• Potomac Gorge and Great Falls: an unusual concentration of rare species right beside a major city.