Conservation Success at Hawk Mountain Sanctuary

Within the Kittatinny Ridge is Hawk Mountain Sanctuary, the world’s oldest sanctuary for birds of prey[1]. Hawk Mountain was founded in 1934 at the height of a national movement to eradicate wild predators, including predatory birds, with the Pennsylvania Game Commission placing a $5 bounty on the head of goshawks[2]. The killings were particularly concentrated along Kittatinny Ridge during the fall migration, when hundreds of raptors would pass over every day[3]. Since conservationists purchased the mountain in 1934 to end the slaughter, Hawk Mountain, which straddles Pennsylvania’s Berks and Schuylkill counties, has been protected as a critical stopover habitat for migrating raptors.

A broad-winged hawkPhoto by Len Blumin via Wikimedia | CC-BY-2.0

Local conservation, global importance

The Atlantic Flyway is a migratory superhighway for billions of birds to fly north to New England and Canada to breed every spring, and then fly back south to the southern States, Central America and the Caribbean to overwinter. Its width spans from the inland Appalachian Mountains down to the Atlantic coast, and Pennsylvania is a key part of this critical route. Migrating birds rely on Pennsylvania’s stopover habitat to forage for ample food and to rest along their semi-annual journey.

A global hotspot for raptor diversity, an estimated 18,000 raptors pass through Hawk Mountain Sanctuary every autumn, peaking at 3,000 a day inmid-September during the height of broad-wing hawk migration[4]. Decades of monitoring have also shown that Hawk Mountain Sanctuary and the surrounding area also serve a critical role for a wide diversity of migrating songbirds. This includes familiar species like cardinals and red-wing blackbirds, as well as less common migrants like orioles, eastern meadowlarks, bobolinks, and a variety of warblers and vireos[5,6].

Of particular importance is the fact that Hawk Mountain Sanctuary provides a stopover for birds that rely on “interior habitat” – large swaths of intact, mature forest instead of patchy, suburban habitat. While some of these “interior” species like eastern wood-pewee, great-crested flycatcher, wood thrush and worm-eating warbler are declining elsewhere in their range, they remain abundant at Hawk Mountain Sanctuary[7], underscoring the importance of preserving this rare forest habitat.

Connecting lowlands to the mountaintop

While Hawk Mountain already plays a critical role in connecting migratory bird habitat within the Atlantic Flyway, more can be done to maximize the ecological value of the sanctuary. Long-term monitoring has shown that many songbird species, like the raptor species Hawk Mountain was founded to protect, fly south along mountain ridgelines. However, unlike the raptors, songbirds do not stop along these ridgelines to rest and feed. Instead, they settle in the greatest numbers in the forests and fields like those around the base of Hawk Mountain[8], where they can linger for days before continuing on their journey.

Species inventories have also revealed that, in addition to migratory birds traveling through the Hawk Mountain Sanctuary, year-round resident bird species also use the full range of the altitudes of Hawk Mountain. Birds wintering at Hawk Mountain travel down into the valleys to find food and to escape extreme weather conditions of the high-altitude ridgeline.

And it’s not just a critical habitat for native and migratory birds. Hawk Mountain is also home to timber rattlesnakes[9], which can travel up to five miles in a breeding season[10] departing from their winter dens found along the ridge line to which they return to after breeding[11]. Amphibians shift in altitude as well, with red backed salamanders[12] and wood frogs[13] traveling down from the upland forest into the wetter valleys to breed during the spring and summer. It provides contiguous key habitat for bobcats, whose populations are rebounding in the region and whose males have home ranges of several dozen square miles[14].

To better reconnect high altitude and lowland habitats, Hawk Mountain Sanctuary is working with neighboring landowners to ensure the mountaintop is not an island, prioritizing connecting to its surrounding valleys and lowlands. As surrounding parcels have come up for sale, the sanctuary has worked to ensure their preservation in perpetuity. One area prioritized for connectivity is the slope below North Lookout, from the base of Hawk Mountain to the Little Schuylkill River in Drehersville, Schuylkill County. This region is critical for protecting the seasonal migration of reptiles and amphibians from higher altitudes towards this lower elevation water source.

At the same time, critical habitat protection is also happening on the south side of Hawk Mountain, where the Pennsylvania Game Commission has acquired fields that are now incorporated into public lands and will be managed by the Commission to maximize pollinator habitat and diversity by incorporating a mix of native plants not found in the woodland habitat of the mountain ridge[15].

The result is a growing matrix of private, public and nonprofit-conserved land that now extends far beyond the 2,500 acres managed by Hawk Mountain Sanctuary, allowing wildlife to move freely over large areas of diverse habitat types. Species with large home ranges like bobcat are now thriving[16], underscoring how a focus on connecting habitats has broadened the impact of Hawk Mountain far beyond its original mission of raptor conservation.

Hawk Mountain Sanctuary and the surrounding protected lands.Photo by Laurie Goodrich, Hawk Mountain Sanctuary | Used by permission

References

1. Hawk Mountain Sanctuary, About Hawk Mountain, 2025, accessed at: https://www.hawkmountain.org/about-hawk
-mountain-sanctuary, 20 February 2025.

2. Discover Lehigh Valley, Hawk Mountain Sanctuary, 2025,
accessed at: https://www.discoverlehighvalley.com/listing/hawk
-mountain-sanctuary/834/ 20 February 2025.

3. Hawk Mountain Sanctuary, Hawk Mountain Sanctuary
1934-2009 Chronology, 24 March 2009. Archived at: https://web.archive.org/web/20110501112453/http://hawkmountain.org/media/Chronology_Updated.pdf

4. Hawk Mountain Sanctuary, Autumn Hawk Migration,
2025, accessed at: https://www.hawkmountain.org/visit/events
/autumn-hawk-migration 20 February 2025.

5. Natural Lands Trust, Hawk Mountain Sanctuary
Association and Geography Dept, Kutztown University, Hawk Mountain Sanctuary Land Management Plan, December 2000.

6. Hawk Mountain Sanctuary, Conservation Partnership
Conserves 77 Acres in Albany Township (blog post), 10 December 2018.

7. Natural Lands Trust, Hawk Mountain Sanctuary
Association and Geography Dept, Kutztown University, Hawk Mountain Sanctuary Land Management Plan, December 2000.

8. Paul G. Rodewald, Margaret C. Brittingham, “Stopover
Habitats of Landbirds During Fall: Use of Edge-Dominated and Early-Successional Forests,” The Auk 121(4): 1040–1055, doi:10.1093/auk/121.4.1040 1 October 2004.

9. Walteer Meshaka, “Field observations of eleven species
of snakes during twenty-six years at Hawk Mountain Sanctuary, Pennsylvania,” J of Kansas Herpetol 36:17-20, December 2010.

10. Pennsylvania Fish & Boat Commission, The Timber
Rattlesnack in Pennsylvania (fact sheet), accessed at: https://www.fishandboat.com/Conservation/Reptiles-Amphibians/Documents/TimberRattlesnakePApamphlet.pdf, 20 February 2025.

11. Eckert, S.A., Jesper, A.C. “Home range, site fidelity, and movements of timber rattlesnakes (Crotalus horridus) in west-central Illinois,” Anim Biotelemetry, 12(1) doi:10.1186/s40317-023-00357-8 3 January 2024.

12. Lawrence L. Woolbright, Christopher P. Martin; “Seasonal Migration by Red-Backed Salamanders, Plethodon cinereus,” J Herpetol, 48 (4): 546–551. doi: 10.1670/12-074 1 December 2014.

13. Robert F. Baldwin, Aram J. K. Calhoun, Phillip
G. deMaynadier “Conservation Planning for Amphibian
Species with Complex Habitat Requirements: A Case
Study Using Movements and Habitat Selection of the
Wood Frog Rana Sylvatica,” J Herpetol, 40(4:) 442-453, doi:10.1670/0022-1511(2006)40[442:CPFASW]2.0.CO;2, 1 December 2006.

14. Bureau of Wildlife Management, Pennsylvania Game
Commission, Bobcat Home Range Size and Intraspecific Social Relationships, September 2000.

15. Dr. Laurie Goodrich, Sarkis Acopian Director of
Conservation Science, Hawk Mountain Sanctuary, personal communication, 12 November 2024.

16. Ibid.