Pennsylvania Game News - July 2020 - 46

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This story is the first installment of a
two-part feature on Joseph Kalbfus, the
first full-time Executive Secretary of the
Pennsylvania Game Commission.
His work for wildlife - not just game
- would establish a foundation for conservation in this Commonwealth that would
earn Pennsylvania and Kalbfus national
recognition.
Next month, Kalbfus works his magic
to save the state's beleaguered black bears
and bring back whitetails and wild turkeys.
Bringing back big game to Penn's Woods
was a colossal undertaking. But Kalbfus was
up to the challenge.

"... of the 6,000 quail purchased in
Mexico, we lost fully two-thirds before
spring came," Kalbfus wrote in his 1917
annual report.
In the legislation creating the resident
hunting license came a mandate for the
Game Commission to fund a predator bounty program, where the agency
reimbursed counties for bounties paid. It
represented the first time the Game Commission would pay bounties; previously
they were paid by legislative appropriations. The law designated legislators to
establish the bountied predator list.
About three months later, follow-up
legislation identified the usual suspects
as bountied animals: bobcats, minks,
weasels and gray foxes. For the first time
ever in bounty laws, it excluded red foxes,
for some reason. The list also included
goshawks, great horned owls and sharpshinned hawks, which were last bountied
during the Scalp Act in 1885.
The new law caught Kalbfus by surprise, something that apparently didn't
happen often to him in legislative affairs.
"I believe it would be well to amend
our bounty laws by striking out the names
of various birds for the killing of which a
46

reward is now offered," Kalbfus countered
in his 1914 annual report.
Within a year, the bounties on raptors were removed and the red fox was
returned to the bounty list. It's unclear
whether Kalbfus objected to the raptors
being included or paying more bounty
dollars than expected. He was already
on the record as opposed to bird-eating
raptors - even crows.
Kalbfus' rescue of these birds of prey
was his first and last. But their brief return
to the bounty list made it abundantly clear
that birds of prey still had popularity
problems. That made sense, though, in an
era when loons and herons - even grebes
- also were considered troublemakers.
There still was much contempt for fishand flesh-eaters among some Pennsylvanians and that meant their existence would
continue to be questioned.
But surely no one ever figured that
scorn would last another half-century.
Even today, there are those who consider
predators - avian and mammalian -
unwelcome. They mostly base their stand
on providing protection for livestock or
prey species, even though science has
proven conclusively that predators rarely
have continuous, significant impacts on
game. Nature accounts for predators by
beefing up production of prey. It does
the same for predators, if their numbers
sag. It's a relationship that has withstood
centuries of corrections, one that's almost
impossible to short-circuit.
Coming to this realization is enlightening for any outdoors person.
And anytime another hunter or backyard bird-feeder acquires a deeper understanding of what's going on outdoors,
conservation wins.
However, there's still much work to
do to help people see what's really happening afield.

Pennsylvania Game News - July 2020

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Pennsylvania Game News - July 2020