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Places We Protect

Blair Creek Preserve

New Jersey

A bobcat stands in tall green grass and looks toward the camera.
Bobcat Endangered New Jersey bobcats make their home in Blair Creek Preserve. © Bob Gress

Blair Creek Nature Preserve, an hour drive from New York City, is home to black bears and bobcats.

Overview

Description

Blair Creek Preserve is the eastern anchor of Bobcat Alley, a forested corridor in Northwestern New Jersey that connects the Appalachian and the Highland mountain ranges. This preserve helps form an uninterrupted greenway with the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area and other protected forested lands. The preserve protects the headwaters of Blair Creek which, in turn, helps provide the clean waters needed for trout fishing and drinking water downstream.

What TNC Has Done/Is Doing

The original 480-acre purchase was completed by a partnership of the Ridge and Valley Conservancy, New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, and The Nature Conservancy. TNC continues to actively purchase nearby lands to add to the preserve.

Access

OPEN TO THE PUBLIC

Hours

Open year-round during daylight hours.

Highlights

Hiking, diverse wildlife, views of the Kittatinny Ridge

Size

716 acres

Explore our work in New Jersey

Visit

Why You Should Visit

Adjacent to northwestern New Jersey’s Delaware Water Gap national recreation area, the Blair Creek Nature Preserve sits nestled at the base of the Kittatinny Ridge, only miles from the Delaware River. A series of trails lead from a gravel parking lot through deciduous forest to beaver ponds, rocky streams, and expansive wetland meadows. The nature preserve’s forests are home to breeding cerulean warblers and many of the nesting warblers that make the Kittatinny Ridge a well-known birding location. Signs of black bears and coyotes dot the trails throughout the preserve.

What to See

  • Shagbark Hickory can be seen throughout the preserve. It provides important roosting sites for bats under the flaking bark.
  • Keep an eye out for bear claw marks on American beech trees. Bears climb the trees to feed on beechnuts!
  • Vernal pools throughout the preserve provide a habitat for many amphibians and reptiles for spawning.
  • Ducks, loons and other migratory birds are often sighted at Fairview Lake.
  • Fall colors are spectacular along the wetland and Kittattinny Ridge.

Visitation Guidelines

  • No swimming, camping, fires, or alcoholic beverages.
  • Littering and dumping are prohibited.
  • No collecting or trapping.
  • Motorized vehicles are prohibited.
  • Do not launch boats from the preserve onto Fairview Lake; no shoreline or ice fishing.

The preserve is open from dawn until dusk. To help protect the forest, TNC works with a local hunting club to reduce deer numbers to sustainable levels. 

Nearby Preserves

Need more nature? Visit The Nature Conservancy's other preserves.

Find More Places We Protect

The Nature Conservancy owns nearly 1,500 preserves covering more than 2.5 million acres across all 50 states. These lands protect wildlife and natural systems, serve as living laboratories for innovative science and connect people to the natural world.

See the Complete Map