Apr 28, 2023 By Ben Moyer, For The Greene County Messenger 5 min read

Visitors to Ohiopyle State Park this spring may notice something different, and some may not like what they see.

The change isn’t evident at familiar “day-use” areas around Ohiopyle Borough, the visitor center, or popular landmarks like Cucumber Falls. To see this shift in park management policy, you must visit the park’s “backcountry.” As the largest of Pennsylvania’s 122 state parks, Ohiopyle’s 21,000 acres do harbor some “backcountry,” at least by state park standards in 21st century northeastern United States.

The Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, Bureau of State Parks has embarked on more active management of parkland forests and other ecological assets. Ohiopyle, due to its size and diverse landscapes, is one of four parks chosen to lead implementation of the change around the state. The other parks delving into active management of resources are nearby Laurel Ridge, Oil Creek in Venango County, and Blue Knob in Blair County.

“Resource Management for the Future,” as park professionals describe the change, is new because Pennsylvania state park management was long characterized by a “hands-off” approach. On other classes of public lands, such as our local Forbes State Forest, managers employ a “multiple-use” philosophy. Forbes State Forest’s 50,000 acres in Fayette, Westmoreland, and Somerset counties have long provided outdoor recreation for visitors, but also furnished wood products harvested from the forest in state-awarded logging contracts.

State parks, however, partly because they were established to preserve some significant feature, and because they tend to be smaller than state forests, have excluded logging, either for sale or management purposes. Parks have been viewed as “preserved” places where nature “takes its course.”

But nature is complex, and even a “hands-off” approach can lead to “undesirable” consequences. Over the five-and-a-half decades since Ohiopyle State Park’s conception, its untouched landscape has, in many places, grown into a “monoculture” woodland lacking diversity in tree species and age of trees. Large tracts of “plateau” land outside the Youghiogheny River gorge, once farmland, are now dominated by tulip poplar trees of identical age. Tulip popular pioneers well on old fields but offers little value to wildlife in food or cover.

A more recent, and even more undesirable, ecological crisis on the park is the invasion of invasive plants and shrubs. The spread of invasive plants is a quiet, insidious threat that’s not always obvious. It’s most easily detected in early spring because invasive shrubs like multi-flora rose, barberry, and honeysuckle leaf out earlier than our native shrubs. When the woods are still “winter-brown,” but a green haze of vegetation is visible at the shrub layer, that’s evidence of takeover by invasives.

Active park management is aimed at addressing these and other concerns, hopefully resulting in a park whose forest is more diverse and more native. Ohiopyle’s managers are already using several tactics including timber harvest, prescribed fire, herbicide application, mechanical vegetation removal, and plantings of native species.

A large timber cut in the park’s northwestern sector, along Greenbrier Road, is nearly complete, and another 90-acre cut is planned for the Pressley Ridge area.

These timber harvests, while initially unpleasant to see, will benefit the park’s wildlife and future forest resilience. They’re also conducted to high environmental standards.

“There is no more intensely supervised logging operation than one on a Pennsylvania state park,” said Barb Wallace, environmental education specialist at Ohiopyle. She also pointed out that 58 percent of the park’s forestland, especially on steep slopes within the river gorge, will remain uncut as “reserved forest.”

Wallace explained that revenue from state park timber harvests will go into a special fund dedicated to management projects, such as needed herbicide applications or prescribed fires, in state parks only. Because Ohiopyle was the source of revenue from the Greenbrier Road cut, Ohiopyle will have priority when applying for management funds.

Ruffed grouse, which have declined in recent years, are one wildlife species that will benefit from more active forest management at Ohiopyle. Grouse need brushy woods (native) that grow up after a disturbance, such as fire or logging.

“Not all our planned cuts will bring in revenue,” Wallace said. “Some will cost the park money, because they are small surgical cuts that require precision and time. But we’re planning those cuts for the ecological benefit that will result. In those cases, we’ll be paying a logger to do the cut.”

Park managers are combatting invasive shrubs with mechanical removal along the road to Kentuck Campground. A heavy-duty, track-mounted mower grubs the invasives out at ground level. Initially, the aftermath is, perhaps, shocking to see but the aim is to encourage return of native vegetation.

“The public doesn’t always understand that the disturbance from mechanical management is ‘more natural’ than the morass of invasive vegetation it removes,” Wallace said.

In another assault on invasive plants, park managers deployed a prescribed fire at the Sugarloaf area atop Laurel Ridge. Wallace said fires are carefully planned and coordinated to achieve results without endangering the public or non-target areas of the park.

Studies show that prescribed fire is an effective way of controlling tick populations. Songbirds like the golden-winged warbler benefit from burning and mechanical vegetation management.

If you paddle the Youghiogheny River, you may notice a big change on the islands between Confluence and Ohiopyle. Not long ago the islands were dominated by head-high masses of invasive Japanese knotweed. But managers and volunteers embarked on a regular program of treating the islands with herbicides, and manual cutting where possible. Their efforts greatly reduced knotweed and welcomed back native wildflowers.

Ohiopyle State Park is a destination for thousands from across the country, and a source of pride for local residents. Recent changes there may strike the eye as unsightly but will help this outdoor gem be the best it can be.

Ben Moyer is a member of the Pennsylvania Outdoor Writers Association and the Outdoor Writers Association of America.