Pacific Northwest Temperate Rainforest

The largest temperate-zone rainforest on Earth, running along the west-facing coastal mountains from Kodiak Island in Alaska to northern California through British Columbia, Washington and Oregon. Heavy winter rain and summer fog drip keep the forest floor consistently moist beneath a canopy of Coast Douglas-fir, Sitka spruce, western hemlock and western redcedar, with dense understories of moss and fern and fallen nurse logs that seed the next generation of trees. Notable expanses survive in Olympic and Mount Rainier National Parks and in British Columbia's Great Bear Rainforest, the world's largest tract of old-growth temperate rainforest; the ecoregion's Northern California reaches hold the coast redwood, the world's tallest tree species, and salmon, spotted owls and marbled murrelets all depend on intact old growth. Much of the original old-growth forest outside protected areas has already been logged.