Tamarack Swamp Natural Area is a boreal (non-glacial)
bog
A bog or bogland is a wetland that accumulates peat as a deposit of dead plant materials often mosses, typically sphagnum moss. It is one of the four main types of wetlands. Other names for bogs include mire, mosses, quagmire, and musk ...
Clinton County, Pennsylvania
Clinton County is a county in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. As of the 2020 census, the population was 37,450. Its county seat is Lock Haven. Clinton County comprises the Lock Haven, PA Micropolitan Statistical Area, which is also inclu ...
, United States. It is named for the
tamarack
''Larix laricina'', commonly known as the tamarack, hackmatack, eastern larch, black larch, red larch, or American larch, is a species of larch native to Canada, from eastern Yukon and Inuvik, Northwest Territories east to Newfoundland, and als ...
tree that is common in the surrounding wetland. The protected natural area consists of 267 acres within the larger Tamarack Swamp complex. Tamarack Swamp is considered an
Important Bird Area
An Important Bird and Biodiversity Area (IBA) is an area identified using an internationally agreed set of criteria as being globally important for the conservation of bird populations.
IBA was developed and sites are identified by BirdLife Int ...
by Audubon Pennsylvania, and was named as one of the top 100 birding sites in Pennsylvania by the Pennsylvania Game Commission.
Location and history
Tamarack Swamp is located in northern Clinton County, Pennsylvania, northeast of the community of Tamarack and accessible via Pennsylvania Route 144, which passes near the western edge of the wetland. The wetland has a total area of 4000 acres, and serves as the
headwaters
The headwater of a river or stream is the geographical point of its beginning, specifically where surface runoff water begins to accumulate into a flowing channel of water. A river or stream into which one or many tributary rivers or streams flo ...
tamarack
''Larix laricina'', commonly known as the tamarack, hackmatack, eastern larch, black larch, red larch, or American larch, is a species of larch native to Canada, from eastern Yukon and Inuvik, Northwest Territories east to Newfoundland, and als ...
tree, which is the only
deciduous
In the fields of horticulture and botany, the term deciduous () means "falling off at maturity" and "tending to fall off", in reference to trees and shrubs that seasonally shed Leaf, leaves, usually in the autumn; to the shedding of petals, aft ...
conifer
Conifers () are a group of conifer cone, cone-bearing Spermatophyte, seed plants, a subset of gymnosperms. Scientifically, they make up the phylum, division Pinophyta (), also known as Coniferophyta () or Coniferae. The division contains a sin ...
in Pennsylvania.
In about 1827, Alexander Kelly, Montgomery Kelly, George Kelly, and Samuel Kelly settled on the western side of Tamarack Swamp. In about 1865, James Hennessy discovered several
moose
The moose (: 'moose'; used in North America) or elk (: 'elk' or 'elks'; used in Eurasia) (''Alces alces'') is the world's tallest, largest and heaviest extant species of deer and the only species in the genus ''Alces''. It is also the tal ...
antler
Antlers are extensions of an animal's skull found in members of the Cervidae (deer) Family (biology), family. Antlers are a single structure composed of bone, cartilage, fibrous tissue, skin, nerves, and blood vessels. They are generally fo ...
s buried in the wetland, indicating that moose once lived there. In a 1925 book by Francis R. Cope, the author referred to the wetland as "a little oasis in the desert." In the early 1900s, parts of Tamarack Swamp were damaged by
logging
Logging is the process of cutting, processing, and moving trees to a location for transport. It may include skidder, skidding, on-site processing, and loading of trees or trunk (botany), logs onto logging truck, trucks
Logging was conducted as late as the 1940s, when Hicks Jennings cut down the only remaining virgin spruce in Tamarack Swamp. By 1947, the tamarack and black spruce trees in the wetland were significantly less healthy than they had been around 1900. In the 1990s, the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy added over 9400 acres to Sproul State Forest, including Tamarack Swamp.
There are plans to develop the Tamarack Swamp area, including plans to drill for
oil
An oil is any nonpolar chemical substance that is composed primarily of hydrocarbons and is hydrophobic (does not mix with water) and lipophilic (mixes with other oils). Oils are usually flammable and surface active. Most oils are unsaturate ...
and
natural gas
Natural gas (also fossil gas, methane gas, and gas) is a naturally occurring compound of gaseous hydrocarbons, primarily methane (95%), small amounts of higher alkanes, and traces of carbon dioxide and nitrogen, hydrogen sulfide and helium ...
in the wetland. Natural gas pipelines have been laid in the swamp. The land that Tamarack Swamp is situated on has multiple owners.