Bear Cave Management Plan • Cave Closed between October 15 and April 15! Enacted May 1, 2002 (Revised January 10, 2004, February 16, 2019) NOTE: Bear Cave is Now Closed October 15 – April 15 Special Note: Bear Cave Closed was in 2009 due to White Nose Syndrome. While it has been reopened, please contact […]
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Bear Cave Natural Area • Western PA •Open 4/15 to 10/15 • MAKC Lease • Permit Required • bearcave@karst.org Please read the management plan and mail or email a permit application to visit Bear Cave. While the permit application is below, the management plan should be read before submitting. The plan will be changing with […]
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Bear Cave is a privately-owned cave, and always has been. It is owned and managed by cavers, Tom and Kim Metzgar, who permit visitation for those who have read the management plan and agree to abide by certain restrictions. If the owners are taking the time to manage the preserve, and to permit visitation, which […]
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Here are some photos of the preserve.
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Bear Cave beginner trips are being offered by MAKC on Memorial Day weekend and during the week of the Fourth of July, as they have been for the past several years. For additional information as the dates get closer, please contact Tom Metzgar. There is no charge (and there should never be a charge) for these trips […]
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By Kim Metzgar I had published serially our story of the fight to save Chestnut Ridge in this very newsletter over a period of time. I felt, for posterity’s sake that I should put it together in a book and in late spring/early summer I did just that. It is available in book format on […]
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October 19 On Friday, 05 August 2011, Joe Duchamp, Assistant Professor, Department of Biology, Indiana University of Pennsylvania, asked permission for his grad student, Laura D’Acunto, to mist net bats outside Bear Cave. Always happy to encourage scientific studies, we granted permission and arranged for Joe to drive up the mountain with his students and […]
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MISSION The Mid-Atlantic Karst Conservancy was established by Western Pennsylvania cavers in 1997 for the following purposes: • Preserving, ensuring access to, acquiring, and managing caves and karst areas for conservation, scientific study, and recreational caving. • Education of landowners, cavers, and the general public in the importance of caves and karst resources and ways […]
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February 29By Joe Duchamp During the summers of 2007 through 2009, faculty members and students at Indiana University of Pennsylvania have been studying the populations of Allegheny woodrats at the Bear Cave Natural Area and surrounding areas in Westmoreland County, Pa. In the vicinity of the Bear Cave area, they trapped six separate rocky areas […]
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Link to article appearing in the Beaver County Times.
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March 1 By Kim Metzgar Tom and I had known that we were about to finally acquire Bear Cave since early in 2001. Finally, after ten years …. Our peace of mind was shattered by a piece of mail my mother received on April 24, 2001. The letter my mother received was from McGrath & Associates, […]
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