Field Trip: Hawk Mountain

Hawk Mountain, near Kempton, PA, used to be the the site of the slaughter of hundreds to thousands of raptors per day during the autumn months. The raptors were attempting to migrate south along the Kittatinny Ridge, a long spine of the Appalachians, and geography funneled them past the mountain, where gunners could sit and wait to blow them out of the sky. It was less than a century ago, after all, that raptors were considered pests by pretty much everybody, including some conservation organizations. As an example, the Pennsylvania Game Commission put a $5 bounty, good money in those days, on Goshawks in 1929. (This Gos is a life-sized model; there’s one for every raptor species expected here.)

But ornithologists began to protest the reckless slaughter in the early 1930s, and in 1934, the mountain was leased, and soon after purchased outright, by New Yorker Rosalie Edge. The wardens she employed initially had a rough time keeping the killers, being killers, off the mountain, but the place was soon free of their scourge. Today, the Hawk Mountain Sanctuary is the oldest “hawk watch” in the world. I was there recently with NYC Audubon. It was a slow day, however, with winds from the wrong direction, so sightings were limited. Which means I will have to return.