In 1929, the Pennsylvania Fish and Game Commission placed a five-dollar bounty on the Northern Goshawk in order to protect game species that it preyed on. The shooting of raptors increased throughout Pennsylvania and attracted the attention of Richard Pough, a photographer from Philadelphia.
The Kittatinny Mountains are a major migration area for raptors, which made it a major shooting range for hunters. Living not to far from the Kittatinny Mountains Pough, armed with his camera, visited the migrating area and photographed wounded and dead birds of prey. The photos were published in a national conservationist magazine and caught the attention of Rosalie Edge.
Glorious Joan of Arc of Conservation
Rosalie Edge was a New York City socialite who was born in 1877. She was part of the suffrage movement and learned to go head to head with the male-dominated political parties who “crushed the right for women to vote”. Her activism for women’s rights prepared her for the conservation world.
While in Paris, France, Edge received a brochure from Willard Van Name titled, “A Crisis in Conservation”. The brochure summarized the future of the American bird population. Edge was moved to take action.
Once back in the United States she met with Van Name and decided to organize the ECC (Emergency Conservation Committee). Her first assault was on the National Association of Audubon Societies for their “barbaric practices and unscrupulous conservation tactics”.
In 1934, Edge went to the Kittatinny Mountains and leased 1,400 acres in order to stop the shooting of raptors. She made Maurice and Irma Broun wardens of the property. The shootings stopped. The property was opened to the public in 1935.
Hawk Mountain Landscape
Today the Sanctuary covers 2,600 acres and is considered a national treasure. The topography is made up of stony, shallow soils, the result of Tuscarora Sandstone. In the northern slopes various plant species are found, as well as nesting birds. The warmer southern slopes provide cover for birds and mammals that winter there.
The varying trees that can be seen are red maples, birches, hickory, black gum and oak.
Visiting Hawk Mountain
Today Hawk Mountain is a sanctuary of 2,400 acres and receives over 100,000 visitors a year.
In 2000, Judy Gabriel organized a tribute to John Denver at Hawk Mountain. She raised funds and dedicated two benches inscribed with Denver’s name to sit at the South Lookout and in the Native Plant Garden.
There are six trails that visitors can follow that range from easy to most difficult.
Sources:
Hawk Mountain "Hawk Mountain Landscape" hawkmountain.org Accessed May 3, 2010
Furmansky, Dyana Z. Rosalie Edge, Hawk of Mercy: The Activist Who Saved Nature from the Conservationists. Atlanta, University of Georgia Press, 2009
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