Powdermill Nature Reserve is an environmental research center operated by the

Carnegie Museum of Natural History The Carnegie Museum of Natural History (abbreviated as CMNH) is a natural history museum in the Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It was founded by Pittsburgh-based industrialist Andrew Carnegie in 1896. Housing some 22 million ...

. Established in 1956, Powdermill serves as a field station for long-term studies of natural populations, and now forms the core of the museum's Center for Biodiversity and Ecosystems. The reserve encompasses 928.17 hectares, which includes forests (~891 hectares), fields (~21 hectares), developed land (~17 hectares), and ponds and streams (~0.36 hectares). It is located in the

Laurel Highlands The Laurel Highlands is a region in southwestern Pennsylvania made up of Fayette County, Somerset County and Westmoreland County. It has a population of about 600,000 people. The region is approximately fifty-five miles southeast of Pitts ...

, 55 miles southeast of

Pittsburgh Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Wester ...

near

Rector, Pennsylvania Rector is a small unincorporated community in Ligonier Township, Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; (Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern ...

. Powdermill is well known for its

avian Avian may refer to: *Birds or Aves, winged animals * Avian (given name) (russian: Авиа́н, link=no), a male forename Aviation *Avro Avian, a series of light aircraft made by Avro in the 1920s and 1930s * Avian Limited, a hang glider manufactu ...

research and is one of the longest continually-running

bird banding Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweight s ...

stations in the United States.

References

External links

Official website
{{Biology-stub Nature reserves in Pennsylvania 1956 establishments in Pennsylvania