New England salt marshes are dying.

[NNadir]

WELLFLEET, Mass. - Pockmarked muck blots this formerly lush marsh on Cape Cod. Dead plant roots jut from barren mud once covered with wavy mats of marsh hay.

New England scientists began noticing dead patches like this one near Lieutenant Island four years ago and called it sudden wetland dieback. Then more such spots were found.

Ecologists warn that saltwater marshes from Maine to Connecticut are suddenly and inexplicably dying, leaving behind land resembling honeycombs, Swiss cheese or an eroded desert landscape...

...Southern New England has lost between 50 to 70 percent of its saltwater marshes since white settlers arrived in the 17th century, according to one study. Marshes can migrate to keep up with changing sea levels, but modern development has caged them in.

“There’s nowhere for it to go,” Smith said. “So, if it’s dying, we’re kind of worried we may lose that habitat forever...”

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14465665/

[stellanoir]

1. I can feel it

It saddens me so.