Catskill Forest Preserve
The Catskill Forest Preserve is the state land within the Catskill State Park, approximately 40 percent of the total. Created in 1885, it has grown to 280,000 acres (1,100 km²) of spruce-fir forests, boreal mountains, wetlands, and trout streams. There are bobcats, minks and fishers in the preserve, and coyotes are often heard. There are some 400 black bears living in the region. The state operates numerous campgrounds and there are over 300 miles of multi-use trails. Hunting is permitted, in season, in much of the park.
The area was used by the Mohawks primarily for hunting. Later it was heavily exploited by the Dutch, English, Irish and Germans; local industry included logging, bluestone quarrying, leather tanning, wintergreen and blueberry harvesting, trapping, fishing, and later, tourism. The old-growth hemlock and northern hardwood forests on the steep mountainsides and remote valleys were sufficiently inaccessible that they survived the logging, tanbarking and charcoal industries of the 18th and 19th centuries.