The presence of the rare Cheat three-tooth snail in Cheat Canyon, the only place on Earth it is known to exist, played a key role in the acquisition of the tract.
ALBRIGHT, W.Va. — A nondescript crevice-dwelling snail with a shell the diameter of a quarter played a starring role in the preservation of a 7.5-mile stretch of Cheat Canyon under an agreement finalized late last week.
The Conservation Fund, working with The Nature Conservancy, purchased the property, which includes a 3,800-acre, rim-to-rim tract of canyon stretching northward from the outskirts of Albright to a segment of Sandy Creek, from The Forestland Group, a timber investment fund. Over the next two years, the land will be transferred to the West Virginia Division of Natural Resources and become a wildlife management area focused primarily on rare species protection.
As a WMA, the land will be open to the public for waterborne recreation, fishing, hiking, birding and hunting, although segments containing key habitat for rare species are expected to be closed or marked with caution signs.
The canyon contains the best whitewater of the lower Cheat, used by commercial rafting outfitters and their clients, and thousands of kayakers annually. It also supports a smallmouth bass fishery that is rebounding following years of pollution from acid mine drainage now being neutralized through limestone sand treatments in its tributaries. A segment of the 330-mile Allegheny Trail that had been declared off-limits to hikers by a previous landowner, causing a major detour, runs the length of the property.
The canyon is also the home of the Cheat three-tooth snail, “one of the world’s rarest land snails” according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. That agency, through a pair of Cooperative Endangered Species Protection grants totaling $1.5 million, got the ball rolling on funding the acquisition of the canyon.
Cracks and fissures in the boulder fields and cliffs of Cheat Canyon encompass Earth’s only known population of the Cheat three-tooth, a species of land snail known to exist only since 1930. “This canyon is one of the world’s most diverse land snail areas, with 60 species known to live here,” said DNR wildlife biologist Craig Stihler.
Stihler said the canyon segment is also the home of Cornwell Cave, where a small population of federally endangered Indiana bats is known to over-winter with other bat species in its three miles of passages…