North Fox Island mapped-dune, forest, vegetation, and wildlife evidence

Why this matters

This is the strongest current ecological source yet added for North Fox Island. It moves North Fox beyond a broad “mature forest” description and connects geology, dune morphology, forest structure, tree types, vegetation, rare element counts, and wildlife habitat functions in one source-linked layer.

The report covers two mapped dune complexes. MDC 76 is a 105.4-acre southwestern parabolic-dune system with a maximum dune height of 153.2 feet, zero roads or impervious surface, and a 100 percent dune-health score. It contains four documented natural-community occurrences: open dunes, boreal forest, mesic northern forest, and sand and gravel beach. The report counts two rare-plant and two rare-animal element occurrences in the complex.

MDC 77 is a smaller 2.7-acre western offshoot separated from MDC 76 by about 0.08 miles of flat terrain without dune morphology. It has a 100 percent dune-health score, zero documented rare-plant occurrences, one rare-animal occurrence, and contextual portions of the same mesic-forest and sand/gravel beach occurrences.

Forests and trees

The boreal forest occurs on steep south- and west-facing dune slopes. Its uneven-aged canopy is dominated by northern white-cedar, with paper birch, balsam fir, quaking aspen, sugar maple, and green ash. Mountain-ash, mountain maple, striped maple, and Canada yew occur beneath the canopy. Several cedars were estimated to be more than 200 years old. Windthrow, senescence, coarse woody debris, and natural uneven-aged structure are prominent.

The mesic northern forest is dominated by sugar maple, with American beech, white ash, red oak, basswood, and white-cedar. The subcanopy includes mountain maple, striped maple, ironwood, and mountain-ash; Canada yew can form a dense understory. A cored sugar maple was estimated at 236 years and a mature cedar at more than 300 years. Vernal pools and pit-mound topography occur. The 2021 description notes pockets of emerald ash borer mortality and local beech bark disease, while the abundance of Canada yew was interpreted as evidence of little deer browse.

Dunes, beach, and vegetation

The open-dune occurrence is an active system of foredune, blowouts, sand burial, abrasion, and moving sand. Marram grass dominates the foredune, with sand reed grass, beach pea, evening-primrose, Gillman’s goldenrod, wheat grass, sand cherry, creeping juniper, hairy puccoon, and starry false Solomon-seal. Mosses and lichens form an inland high-dune crust. Spotted knapweed and Canada bluegrass were locally common in 2021, and a mowed trail creates a minor erosion and invasive-species pathway.

The sand and gravel beach is a 10–30-foot buffer between the dune system and Lake Michigan. High-water years left vegetation especially sparse in 2021. The observed beach assemblage included sand reed grass, wild wormwood, beach pea, evening-primrose, common milkweed, northern white-cedar, soapberry, quaking aspen, balsam poplar, red-osier, and paper birch. The beach remains hydrologically connected to Lake Michigan and is shaped by burial, erosion, and accretion.

Animals and birds

The report uses the dune and forest mosaic as habitat for Fowler’s toad, eastern hognose snake, spider wasps, wolf spiders, antlions, shorebirds, waterfowl, neotropical migrant songbirds, and bats. The coastal forests supply feeding, perching, and roosting structure, while the open dunes and beach support fauna adapted to high wind, wave energy, and exposed sand.

These are habitat-function statements and species examples, not a complete North Fox fauna inventory. They should be joined to the separate GBIF and archipelago wildlife indexes without converting habitat description into an observation.

Mapping and evidence limits

The generated GeoJSON contains four representative occurrence points printed in the report. It does not pretend that those points are natural-community boundaries. The layer should be used with the seven-island NLCD land-cover and tree-canopy rasters, the GLO and geology records, and public wildlife records.

One identifier discrepancy is preserved: Table 4 prints the boreal-forest EOID as 6073, while the detailed subsection heading prints 6703. The index retains both identifiers pending record-level verification with MNFI.

North Fox is now substantially better covered, but the report does not close the South Fox gap. South Fox still needs a comparable natural-community, vegetation, and species source or a targeted public-record retrieval.

Added 3 August 2026. Recent changes