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Sphagnum with the carnivorous Sarracenia purpurea, also called the 'purple pitcher plant'.. As with West Virginia's remote mountain forests, the farms and lands with meadows and woodlots near urban areas also hold whitetail deer, chipmunks, raccoons, skunks, groundhogs, opossums, weasels, field mice, flying squirrels, cotton-tail rabbits, gray foxes, red foxes, gray squirrels, red squirrels ...
The environment of West Virginia encompasses terrain and ecosystems ranging from plateaus to mountains. Most of West Virginia lies within the Appalachian mixed mesophytic forests ecoregion , while the higher elevations along the eastern border and in the panhandle lie within the Appalachian-Blue Ridge forests .
The Monongahela National Forest is a national forest located in the Allegheny Mountains of eastern West Virginia, US.It protects over 921,000 acres (3,727 km 2; 1,439 sq mi) of federally managed land within a 1,700,000 acres (6,880 km 2; 2,656 sq mi) proclamation boundary that includes much of the Potomac Highlands Region and portions of 10 counties.
The Virginia opossum (Didelphis virginiana) The eastern coyote (Canis latrans var.) is expanding its range in West Virginia. The American, or northern, short-tailed shrew ( Blarina brevicauda ) The woodland vole ( Microtus pinetorum ) The snowshoe hare ( Lepus americanus ), typical of Canada, reaches its southernmost distribution in West Virginia.
The forests cover 1.8 million acres (2,800 sq mi) of land in the Appalachian Mountains of Virginia, West Virginia, and Kentucky. Approximately 1 million acres (1,600 sq mi) of the forest are remote and undeveloped and 139,461 acres (218 sq mi) [ 2 ] have been designated as wilderness areas, which prohibits future development.
The ranges of some 34 salamander species, 15 species of frogs and toads, 21 species of snakes, 13 turtle species, and 6 lizard species extend into some portion of the state. Two of these — the Cheat Mountain salamander and West Virginia spring salamander — are endemic to West Virginia.
West Virginia contains a network of eight state forests that help to protect over 70,000 acres (28,000 ha) of wooded lands in the state. Most of the forests are managed by the West Virginia Division of Forestry, although Kanawha State Forest is managed as a state park by the Division of Natural Resources.
West Virginia is the 10th-smallest state by area and ranks as the 12th-least populous state, with a population of 1,793,716 residents. [5] The capital and most populous city is Charleston with a population of 49,055. West Virginia was admitted to the Union on June 20, 1863, and was a key border state during the American Civil War.