Conservation Organization Project
The Wildlands Conservancy oversees this 2,500-acre preserve near Blakeslee in northeastern Pennsylvania. Lands owned by the Wildlands Conservancy, The Nature Conservancy, and Tobyhanna Township make up the preserve. The area is home to wildlife from bobcats to bears, abundant smaller mammals, birds, and reptiles and amphibians.
Biodiversity is essential to nature and a key motivator of our work. We can’t have biodiversity without habitat diversity, and young forests play a critical role in creating that diversity.”
Three Phases Create Early Successional Habitat
In upland forest near a protected glacial bog, conservationists launched a three-phase project to make young forest in an area where such habitat is rare. The Wildlands Conservancy notes that “Biodiversity is essential to nature and a key motivator of our work. We can’t have biodiversity without habitat diversity, and young forests play a critical role in creating that diversity.”
In 2013, a timber harvest in 60 acres of low-quality beech-maple forest (many of the beech trees were diseased) spawned a dense regrowth of ground plants, shrubs, and saplings. The Natural Resources Conservation Service contributed funding through their Working Lands for Wildlife program. Although this initial phase was designed mainly to help golden-winged warblers, the total number of bird species found in the new young forest rose from 29 to more than 100 only five years after logging.
Habitat specialists also used controlled burning, in which low-intensity fire scoured away sprouts from the beech trees’ root systems that would have suppressed other plants.
Shelterwood Timber Harvests
In the second habitat creation phase, a grant from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation paid for marking 165 acres of forest for a shelterwood timber harvest in 2019. Workers also fenced in 50 acres of regenerating young forest to keep deer from browsing off the new growth.
The third phase of the young forest effort will include another shelterwood timber cut.
The Wildlands Conservancy invites people to hike on Darling Preserve: "We realize the benefit young forests have for our planet and are working to increase the acreage of young forests while educating the public and connecting them to the collage of beauty around us."
How to Visit
The South Entrance parking area and trailhead lie across the road from this address: 606 PA-940, Pocono Lake PA 18347.
A trail map shows walking routes.
Learn more about Thomas Darling Preserve. The Wildlands Conservancy shares the full story of its young forest habitat work.
