Ecology

Finding balance: Lessons from early conservation efforts

Anne Gageby
Strawberry Hill Nature Preserve

(2/2023) During William Penn’s time, about 99 percent of Pennsylvania’s nearly 29 million acres were forested. Within a few generations, our forests had been whittled down to around half their original size. Within that half existed a nominal selection of wildlife as entire game populations had been quickly extirpated or brought to the brink of extinction. By the late-1800s logging, unregulated hunting and trapping, and rapacious farming techniques had turned our beautiful state into a ghost of its former self. Fixing the damage was a seemingly impossible task, one that fell to a handful of conservationists and government organizations such as the newly minted Pennsylvania Game Commission and Pennsylvania Forestry Association. It would be a long road to walk.

It's hard to imagine a Pennsylvania forest from three hundred years ago. Before European settlers alighted on our shores, our forests were incredibly rich in biodiversity, having the fortune to be a mixture of forestry zones. Elk once roamed our lush Pennsylvania woods in droves. The skies were filled with flocks of the now-extinct carrier pigeon. Bobcats, fishers, river otters, and bald eagles all thrived in our woods.

Early colonists pushed further west in ever-expanding waves of settlement which required more resources year over year. Hunters and trappers took as much game as they could in a day with no regard for animal repopulation. Regulations for hunting and trapping were uncomplicated – there simply were none. No oversight and no game-specific hunting seasons led to ecological injuries that would last for decades.

Mountain lions were a common predator in the Commonwealth until a perfect storm of habitat destruction and loss of prey (primarily elk and white-tail deer) led to their eventual decline, aided by predator eradication programs of the 1800s. These programs were a potential boon for poor families as they had no bag limits and paid handsomely for every kill brought in. A good hunter could provide for his family with the bounty he collected.

His opportunities weren’t limited to mountain lions. All big game predators suffered at the hands of economy and fear. The North American wolf population was estimated to have been around one million at its height. European settlers wore a mantel of religious fear and deeply rooted mistrust of wolves, not surprising when examined through the lens of Church teachings. Wolves were the very essence of evil. And in 18th century Pennsylvania, they were literally right outside your door.

It's easy to assign blame to the animals themselves. After all, mountain lions, bears, and wolves have long been notoriously mischaracterized as inherently and pressingly dangerous. And yet no one can say the same of our beloved turkey. Wild turkeys once thrived in the United States. Some estimates put a total of around ten million birds within the Appalachian region alone. By the 1930s wild turkey numbers had dropped to their lowest recorded numbers due to severe overhunting and were on the brink of extinction. By this point in America’s history, the few remaining pockets of wild turkeys were reduced to the most inhabitable locations.

Overhunting and trapping were one line in a list of problems facing our early nation. Logging had quickly become the backbone of American society. Lumber was harvested for shipbuilding, railroad expansion, fuel, tanning, and more. Timber barons grew unimaginably wealthy since our country’s focus was on development, not on the sustainability of natural resources. In 1907, Teddy Roosevelt noted that the dizzying pace of deforestation had depleted the country’s timber to the point that "the country is unquestionably on the verge of a timber famine which will be felt in every household in the land."

Around the turn of the century, the conversation began to shift toward conservation. In 1902, the U.S. Geological Survey submitted a report to President Roosevelt that described the grave damage inflicted upon American forests by industrial logging companies. The worst, in the minds of the surveyors, was the alarming rate of operations. "Within less than a decade every mountain cove will have been invaded and robbed of its finest timber, and the last remnants of these grand Appalachian forests will have been destroyed," the report noted.

If the problem had simply been a matter of losing greenery, the argument might have ended there. Instead, the country was slowly opening its eyes to the jagged, bitter truth: logging companies had done unthinkable ecological harm. The loggers had stomped through previously untouched forests with a careless ferocity, leaving miles of torn-up soil, crushed trees, and scarred, burnt land in their wake. Their waste had piled up in chaotic stacks leaving massive broken trees to rot along the muddy, sullen forest floor. Without trees to act as riparian buffers, watersheds became sludgy messes of soil runoff and waste. Industrial pollution poured into waterways and swaths of farmland became uninhabitable. Creeks and rivers, once crystal clear and pure, became wastelands that could no longer support flora or fauna. These areas became known as Pennsylvania’s "deserts."

On a national scale, the conservation movement, which was in its infancy during the turn of the century, started slowly shifting the conversation to responsible resource management. Instead of asking the public to save the forest, it asked the public to consider ethically and sustainably using the forests’ resources for the benefit of all. The Public Trust Doctrine helped further this dynamic shift in thinking.

The Public Trust Doctrine has roots that go back to Roman civil law. Today, it’s an essential part of American wildlife law and establishes a trustee-style relationship of authority, one that gives the government the legal ability to hold and manage wildlife, fish, and waterway on behalf of the public. At its core is the idea that natural resources are deemed universally important and that everyone should have access to said resources for the purpose of fishing, trapping, hunting, and traveling.

If we were to overlay an image of Pennsylvania today with an image of our state from a hundred years ago, the difference would be breathtaking. The modern, new-growth forests we see today are a banner of hope, one born of hard-learned lessons over many generations. As Teddy Roosevelt noted, "The movement for the conservation of wildlife and the larger movement for the conservation of all our natural resources are essentially democratic in spirit, purpose, and method." Today, Pennsylvanians are now "walking Teddy Roosevelt’s talk."

Anne Gageby is the Environmental Education Manager of the Strawberry Hill Foundation. Strawberry Hill inspires stewardship of our natural world by
connecting the community with educational opportunities.
 Learn more by visiting StrawberryHill.org.