Friends of Allegheny Wilderness

06/15/2026

The Northern Ring-neck is a secretive reptile, not often seen. But if you do come across one, it can emit a pungent, unpleasant-smelling musk to help repel an attacker.

The Northern Ring-Neck is harmless, except maybe to your sense of smell.

Adults reach sizes of 10 to 24 inches.

It's distinguishable characteristic is a golden or yellowish ring that encircles the neck.

The Northern Ring-neck can be found throughout Pennsylvania.

Please don't kill snakes! 🐍 😊

The Northern Ring-neck is a secretive reptile, not often seen. But if you do come across one, it can emit a pungent, unpleasant-smelling musk to help repel an attacker.

The Northern Ring-Neck is harmless, except maybe to your sense of smell.

Adults reach sizes of 10 to 24 inches.

It’s distinguishable characteristic is a golden or yellowish ring that encircles the neck.

The Northern Ring-neck can be found throughout Pennsylvania.

06/15/2026

06/13/2026

Fast Fact! ⚡️

🔷 The U.S. Forest Service manages the most wilderness areas: 448 units!

🔷 Bureau of Land Management: 263.

🔷 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service: 71.

🔷 National Park Service: 61.

Fast Fact! ⚡️

🔷 The U.S. Forest Service manages the most wilderness areas: 448 units!

🔷 Bureau of Land Management: 263.

🔷 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service: 71.

🔷 National Park Service: 61.

06/12/2026

Anti-public lands U.S. Senator Mike Lee of Utah is at it again.

06/11/2026

A large impressive new mural is currently being painted on the side of a building in downtown Warren, Pennsylvania near the roundabout at the intersection of Pennsylvania Avenue and Market Street highlighting various aspects of Warren's history.

One of the most prominent components of the new mural is an image of the famous Chief Cornplanter of the Iroquois Indians, an important signatory of the 1794 Treaty of Canandaigua between the Iroquois and the United States of America.

Did you know that Friends of Allegheny Wilderness has proposed that a 3,022-acre portion of the Allegheny National Forest along the western shoreline of the Allegheny Reservoir be permanently protected from all forms of development as wilderness under the Wilderness Act of 1964, in part to honor Chief Cormplanter and his legacy?

Proposed Cornplanter Wilderness Area:

http://pawild.org/images/maps/cornplanter.jpg

☀️Day 9 Warren, PA Mural progress. Today we finished Chief Cornplanter, a prominent figure in our county’s history. Here to elaborate is our local historical society:

CHIEF CORNPLANTER (1738—1836)

Cornplanter, also known as Gy-ant-wa-kia or John O’Bail, was Chief of the Seneca Nation and a war Chief of the Six Nations of the Iroquois. After the British lost the Revolutionary War, Chief Cornplanter was instrumental in convincing the Six Nations of the Iroquois, including the Seneca Tribe, to negotiate with the newly formed United States Government. He became a strong diplomatic influence in aiding the government in negotiating settlements and treaties with other Iroquois tribes.

Chief Cornplanter was a dominant force in two such treaties. First, in 1784, Cornplanter traveled to the Six Nations’ villages to encourage ratification of the Fort Stanwix Treaty. The chiefs of the Six Nations, as well as the Delaware and Shawnee tribes, ratified the treaty. The Fort Stanwix Treaty was intended as a peace treaty between the U.S. Government and the Six Nations of the Iroquois.
Chief Cornplanter was granted 600 acres in Forest County near West Hickory, 300 acres in Venango County near Oil City, and 600 acres on the Allegheny River in Warren County, about three miles below the New York State boundary in Pennsylvania. Chief Cornplanter sold the Forest and Venango County tracts and kept the Warren County tract.

In 1794, Chief Cornplanter helped to negotiate the Treaty of Canandaigua, also known as the Pickering Treaty, between the United States Government and the Six Nations of the Iroquois. This treaty provided land and access for the Seneca Tribe, but would later be rescinded by the Government to make way for the Kinzua Dam and Allegheny Reservoir.

Courtesy of the Warren County Historical Society. For more information, please visit warrenhistory.org.

06/11/2026

Looking north up the Allegheny Reservoir from Kinzua Point, Tuesday, June 9th, 2026.

Let us endeavor toward preserving this refreshingly natural view and the Allegheny Reservoir shoreline, leaving it forever as wild and undeveloped as it is today.

We can help hermetically seal the shoreline of the Allegheny Reservoir against all forms of development—including from all forms of developed recreation—by designating the following Allegheny National Forest areas as wilderness areas under the Wilderness Act of 1964:

• Proposed Cornplanter Wilderness, 3,022 acres: http://pawild.org/images/maps/cornplanter.jpg

• Proposed Scandia Wilderness, 4,752 acres: http://pawild.org/images/maps/scandia_nra.jpg

• Proposed Tracy Ridge Wilderness, 9,705 acres: http://pawild.org/images/maps/tracy_ridge.jpg

• Proposed Chestnut Ridge wilderness, 5,191 acres: http://pawild.org/images/maps/chestnut_ridge.jpg

• Proposed Morrison Run Wilderness, 6,887 acres: http://pawild.org/images/maps/morrison_run.jpg

Permanently protecting all of these areas as wilderness will guarantee high-quality wildlife habitat for everything from black bears (Ursus americanus) to bald eagles (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) to little brown bats (Myotis lucifugus) and everything in between, and provide absolute gold-standard watershed protection in the lands surrounding the Allegheny Reservoir for all time to come!

Lands immediately surrounding the Allegheny Reservoir influence runoff, sedimentation, nutrients, and pollutants entering the water. Stronger protections such as wilderness designations under the Wilderness Act can reduce development, logging impacts, road density, and fragmentation—leading to long-term benefits for reservoir water quality, harmful algal bloom (HAB) mitigation, and overall ecological health.

06/11/2026

For best results go hiking.

06/11/2026

Rainbow Gathering Near the Hickory Creek Wilderness

F.y.i. there will evidently be a meeting of the Rainbow Gathering in the Allegheny National Forest for the next couple of weeks or so, just south of the east end of the Hickory Creek Wilderness on Forest Road 543 just off of Forest Road 116 (Mayburg Road).

The North Country National Scenic Trail passes through this area, so this information may be relevant to this weekend's A-100 N.C.T. hikers.

This is not the main annual national Rainbow gathering, but rather a much smaller pre-planning meeting of some sort ahead of their main gathering to take place somewhere else in the east in July. Still, there may be hundreds of more people in this part of the forest than there ordinarily would be for a little while.

This is just a general heads up for those who would prefer to avoid such crowds when you are visiting the Allegheny National Forest. Also, drug use and nudity are possibilities at any Rainbow meeting.

06/02/2026

Love helping the hellbenders, but it might nice if you could get this plate with a different slogan, such as "Preserve Biodiversity," or maybe "Save Endangered Species."

"Conserve Wild Resources" sounds too anthropocentric. It's not about what the natural world can do for people, per se, so much as it is about protecting the wild for its own sake.

You can help conserve Pennsylvania’s native plant and non-game wildlife by purchasing a hellbender license plate!

A portion of the purchase will support DCNR’s Wild Resource Conservation Program.

Learn more: https://www.pa.gov/agencies/dcnr/conservation/wildlife-biodiversity/wild-resources-conservation-program.