About

The Natural Pittsburgh website is a collection of stories and news bits from a number of sources reporting on nature news throughout the region. The reporting grew out of my portfolio of news stories covering the environment in the Pittsburgh area for a couple of decades. This website, still in part, serves as a portfolio for my work.

Much has changed in the recent past with markedly cleaner rivers, redevelopment of the river fronts for trails and a desire by the public to spend more time outdoors.

These days, there is a bounty of wildlife in and closer to urban areas including the bald eagle, peregrine falcon, bear, coyotes, beaver, river otters, snakes, hellbenders, fresh-water mussels and more.

As a longtime journalist for the Valley News Dispatch/Tribune-Review, it’s been exciting to write about the wildlife and the improving environment and challenges in southwestern Pennsylvania.

I grew up in suburban Pittsburgh not paying much attention to the natural world in a post-industrial environment with polluted rivers. Other than hunting, there were scant outdoor recreational opportunities to the average person. A chance encounter with arguably one of the most beautiful and brightest neotropical migrants, the scarlet tanager, showed me there was much more to be seen.

Having written a 2008 story about the imminent arrival of bald eagle to the city, PixController of Murrysville (which was later bought by CSE Corp.) a video surveillance company, invited me to help with a webcam along with the Pennsylvania Game Commission documenting the first pair of bald eagles to nest within the city limits of Pittsburgh in more than 150 years. I led the reporting and development of a dedicated web page for the Valley News Dispatch/Tribune-Review for the first media live webcam stream of the Pittsburgh eagle nest. 

Today,  the details of the lives of  the Pittsburgh bald eagles in the Hays, Harmar and elsewhere have become as well-known as the weather forecast. The city has embraced the birds as symbols of renewal and wildness unknown to many less than a decade ago.

Although the rivers and the bald eagle have made a comeback, there are still significant environmental challenges posed by legacy pollution, current industries, power sources, acid mine drainage, and in Armstrong County, nuclear contamination.

Like nature itself, there’s much environmental news out there if you take the time to look.  

Mary Ann Thomas

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

For questions and more information on my work, please contact me at mthomas3535@outlook.com.