Hawk Mt. Sanctuary to buy 25 acres

Nick Meyer/Staff Photographer
Mary Linkevich, director of Communications and Grants, left, and Jerry Regan, president of Hawk Mountain Sanctuary, talk about the land they will buy west of the Appalachian Trail in Berks County through a grant.

Hawk Mountain Sanctuary plans to buy land bordering the Appalachian National Scenic Trail.

The 25.3 acres of woodland will become part of the sanctuary, a roughly 2,500-acre wildlife-protected habitat in Schuylkill and Berks counties, said Mary Linkevich, Hawk Mountain's director of communication and grants.

"There are all types of wildlife that use it, amphibians, mammals, birds, and it's stopover habitat for raptors," Linkevich said.

It will cost Hawk Mountain $210,000 to buy the property. Earlier this month, the sanctuary received a $100,000 grant from the state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources toward the purchase, Linkevich said.

The sanctuary will buy the property in early 2014, she said.

It's one of three DCNR grants the sanctuary recently received, Linkevich said in a press release.

The others are $250,000 to help build a fully accessible walkway that connects the Outdoor Amphitheater, Visitors Center, Native Plant Garden and Hawk Mountain Road, and $200,000 for upgrades at the Irma Broun-Kahn Education Building.

The 25.3 acres of woodland the sanctuary intends to buy in Kempton, Berks County, is privately owned. Linkevich and Jerry Regan, president of the Hawk Mountain Sanctuary Association, would not identify the owner.

The site borders the Appalachian Trail and Hawk Mountain Road, Linkevich said.

"It's forested with 120-year-old maple woodlands with hemlock groves which provide important lower-elevation mixed forest habitat," she said. "Biological inventories completed by Hawk Mountain show the area is used by the pileated woodpecker, black bear, wild turkey, wood thrush, chestnut-sided warbler, scarlet tanager, the state-threatened timber rattlesnakes and many other Appalachian forest species, as well as migratory raptors who use it for stopover resting and feeding."

The sanctuary worked hard to acquire the property to prevent a private landowner from buying it and developing it, she said.

"A possible private sale and development on this parcel presents the highest risk to the character of Hawk Mountain's gateway experience and for hikers along the Appalachian Trail, and would certainly degrade its outstanding wildlife values," Linkevich said.

Hawk Mountain was required to match the state grant with $100,000, which it obtained through a zero-interest loan from Norcross Wildlife Foundation, she said.

Meanwhile, Linkevich said the sanctuary is looking to invest in 59.8 acres of riverside property in West Brunswick Township, Schuylkill County.

"It's immediately below the North Lookout at Hawk Mountain," she said. "We continue to raise funds in hopes to purchase development rights. We are not buying the property, but a conservation easement."

spytak@republicanherald.com

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