In 2017, The Nature Conservancy purchased roughly 350 acres of Cove Mountain, right on the Susquehanna River water gap. Cove Mountain represents TNC’s first nature preserve in central Pennsylvania along the Kittatinny Ridge.
TNC manages the Cove Mountain Preserve to provide recreational opportunities for both locals and visitors, and to support forest health and native wildlife, including migrating raptors and songbirds.
Kittatinny Ridge
Running through Pennsylvania for 185 miles, the Kittatinny Ridge is the first prominent landscape feature visitors encounter when moving north or west from Philadelphia. It is one of the commonwealth’s most treasured landscapes.
The Kittatinny represents a vast corridor of connected natural habitats—an incredibly biodiverse superhighway for wildlife, including birds and raptors migrating along the Atlantic flyway. It has been identified by scientists as critical to the future of hundreds of animal and bird species amid a changing climate.
TNC is lead partner in the Kittatinny Ridge Partnership, a coalition of NGOs, county, state and federal partners, local conservation groups, education partners and local recreation clubs and chapters. The coalition exists to combine resources, set collective goals and create a shared vision for a rugged and protected Kittatinny Ridge corridor for both people and nature. TNC’s primary role in the coalition is to protect priority parcels of land along the Ridge through direct acquisition and easements.