Partner Spotlight
The Carnegie Museum of Natural History

WPC and The Carnegie Museum of Natural History (CMNH) share aspects of their mission and a long history of cooperation for conservation. Dr. M. Graham Netting played key roles in the development of both as a founding director of WPC and as director of the museum.

The collaboration between both organizations continues today, perhaps most evident in combined efforts to protect the Powdermill Nature Reserve in Westmoreland County. Powdermill adjoins Forbes State Forest, much of which was assembled in the 1970s as part of WPC’s Mountain Streams Project to protect the watershed of Roaring Run on the western slope of Laurel Ridge.

WPC plays a role in the preservation of Powdermill through a perpetual conservation easement over much of the reserve. The Carnegie granted the initial easement to WPC in 1981. In 2002, the parties amended the original easement to include nearly all of the reserve property. The Powdermill easement, plus separate agreements between WPC and neighboring landowners, protect more than 2,750 acres from development and incompatible uses.

Additionally, three of WPC’s Natural Heritage Program staff function as research associates in the museum’s Botany, Mollusks and Invertebrate Zoology sections. CMNH holds the primary collection recognized by WPC staff for documenting the biodiversity of the region, and collections of plants and animals made during WPC research are often deposited at CMNH. WPC biologists regularly use the Museum’s libraries, collections and laboratories as unique resources that support their work.

The collaboration of WPC’s Natural Heritage Program and CMNH science sections has been recognized as an effective partnership for conducting biological diversity studies. Past studies include a vegetation analysis of Enlow Fork valley in Greene and Washington counties, three comprehensive surveys of insects in the Allegheny National Forest, an inventory of dragonflies and damsel-flies of the Clarion River, a freshwater mussel and aquatic insect study of 10 streams on the High Allegheny Plateaus, a study of the invertebrate fauna of special barrens habitats across Pennsylvania, and a description of floodplain wetland communities in the Susquehanna River drainage for the federal Environmental Protection Agency.

Current collaborative scientific projects include a study of floodplains in the Ohio River basin, a mollusk study at a Potomac River site, an assessment of biodiversity at Erie Bluffs State Park, providing invertebrate biodiversity information for the State Wildlife Plan, and a survey of Pennsylvania’s fireflies.

WPC values the Carnegie Museum of Natural History and its scientists as extensions of our own capabilities for conservation. Close cooperation with a museum of the Carnegie’s international stature enables WPC to more effectively pursue the scientific aspects of its mission.

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