Wilson-Tuscarora State Park is located in Niagara County along the south shore of Lake Ontario at the mouth of Twelve-Mile Creek. Established in 1965, the park encompasses approximately 386 acres where visitors can swim, fish, canoe, birdwatch, and picnic. Slowly recovering from past logging and agricultural use, the park's landscape is now dominated by successional field, shrubland, northern hardwood habitat communities as well as by wetlands and mature forests The lake is home to a wide variety of fish species and aquatic plant life. Smallmouth bass, yellow perch, bullhead, and walleye pike have inhabited these waters for hundreds of years. Fish such as Chinook and coho salmon and brown and rainbow trout are stocked in Lake Ontario. Others, such as the round goby and the sea lamprey, were accidentally introduced to Lake Ontario. Belted Kingfisher, photograph courtesy of Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology, photographer Johann Schumacher. Common Merganser, photograph courtesy of Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology, photographer Mike Hopiak. Smallmouth Bass, photograph courtesy of NYS Department of Environmental Conservation. Bushy Cinquefoil. Ring-billed Gull, photograph courtesy of Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology, photographer O.S. Pettingill. Lake Ontario Statistics. Length 193 miles. Width 53 miles. Elevation 243 feet. Retention Time 6 years. +Retention Time: measure based on on the volume of water in the lake and the rate of outflow. Volume 393 cubic miles. Average Depth 283 feet. Maximum Depth 802 feet. Approximately 13,000 years ago, meltwater from the receding ice sheet formed glacial Lake Warren (pre-Lake Erie). As the lake extended east, overflow spilled into the Niagara Region forming Lake Tonawanda between the Niagara and Onongaga Escarpments. Lake Tonawanda's outlets drained over the Niagara Escarpment into Lake Iroquois (pre-Lake Ontario) as waterfalls. After Lake Tonawanda's four eastern outlets dried up, the Lewiston outlet formed the Niagara River. The Lewiston Branch Gorge was created as the initial, smaller Niagara Falls dropped over the Niagara Escarpment. From F.M. Kindle and Frank B. Taylor, Geologic Atlas of the United States, Niagara Falls - folio No. 190 (New York, 1913). Natural History of Lake Ontario. Lake Ontario is one of five Great Lakes that contain nearly 20% of the world's fresh water. Created as a result of glacial activity, geologists believe the lake to be about 6,000 years old. Lake Ontario's ancestor was Lake Iroquois, a post-glacial lake that formed 12,500 years ago when meltwater began flowing over the Niagara Escarpment to the south. The lake level started dropping when the Wisconsin glacier retreated north and freed the St. Lawrence channel of ice, forming a new drainage path to the Atlantic Ocean. Lake Ontario received the outflow of the other Great Lakes by way of the Niagara River located 12 miles west of here. Gulls, herons, terns, kingfishers, and numerous waterfowl can be found along Lake Ontario's shore. Wilson-Tuscarora State Park is situated between the east and west branches of Twelve-Mile Creek. Nearby is a gravel bar that is home to bushy cinquefoil, an endangered plant species of New York State.
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