Hawk Woods is an

old-growth forest An old-growth forestalso termed primary forest, virgin forest, late seral forest, primeval forest, or first-growth forestis a forest that has attained great age without significant disturbance, and thereby exhibits unique ecological featur ...

located in central Athens County,

Ohio Ohio () is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Of the List of states and territories of the United States, fifty U.S. states, it is the List of U.S. states and territories by area, 34th-l ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...

, outside the city of

Athens Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Greece, largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh List ...

. The forest comprises of foothills in the

Allegheny Plateau The Allegheny Plateau , in the United States, is a large dissected plateau area of the Appalachian Mountains in western and central New York, northern and western Pennsylvania, northern and western West Virginia, and eastern Ohio. It is divided ...

region. Adjacent to

Strouds Run State Park Strouds Run State Park is a public recreation area abutting the city of Athens in Athens County, Ohio, in the United States. The state park is located primarily in Canaan Township, with a small part in Ames Township. Park boundaries coincide ...

, the woods now are included in a state nature preserve named the Dale & Jackie Riddle State Nature Preserve.

Riddle State Nature Preserve

The preserve is owned and managed by the City of Athens, with the original direction coming from the Athens Conservancy. This Ohio public land was dedicated as a state nature preserve, in part because the Ohio Division of Natural Areas and Preserves donated $50,000 towards the purchase price. The property was purchased from a logging company in 2003 for $550,000. Prior to 2003, the forest had been under private ownership, which kept it isolated from the public for at least 150 years. The preserve is part of the city's east-side Strouds Ridge Preserve project, which to date includes about total. The Athens Conservancy purchased an adjacent tract of land in 2018 to help buffer the forest from invasive species that result from outside development. As with many other areas in southeast Ohio, the preserve suffers from

white-tail deer The white-tailed deer (''Odocoileus virginianus''), also known as the whitetail or Virginia deer, is a medium-sized deer native to North America, Central America, and South America as far south as Peru and Bolivia. It has also been introduced t ...

overpopulation. A deer exclosure was built to demonstrate the effects of grazing pressure from the deer. The preserve is known to harbor the relatively rare

gametophytic A gametophyte () is one of the two alternating multicellular phases in the life cycles of plants and algae. It is a haploid multicellular organism that develops from a haploid spore that has one set of chromosomes. The gametophyte is the sex ...

fern species, the weft fern, '' Trichomanes intricatum''.

References

External links

Official website

U.S. Geological Survey Map
at the U.S. Geological Survey Map Website. Retrieved November 5, 2022. State parks of Ohio Old-growth forests Protected areas of Athens County, Ohio Nature reserves in Ohio {{AthensCountyOH-geo-stub