Rosalie Edge: Hawk of Mercy

Hawk Mountain -- a ridge in Pennsylvania -- used to be a place where hunters would gun down dozens of raptors in a single day and bird carcasses would litter the hillsides.  Hawks were viewed much like wolves are treated to this day -- as vicious predators -- and hunters would take shots at the birds as they followed currents over the ridge, encouraged by generous bounties paid by the states.   What was then known as the National Association of Audubon Societies (now the National Audubon Society) was slow to pay attention to the killing of raptors, prompting citizen conservationist Rosalie Edge to step in and lease the land in 1934 and turn it into a wildlife sanctuary. 

Dead raptors -- the product of a single day's hunt -- are lined up for exhibition on Hawk Mountain before Rosalie Edge took action to save this habitat from exploitation. Photo from Hawk Mountain Sanctuary.
Rosalie Edge
Hawk Mountain Sanctuary still serves to protect wildlife and promote awareness today, but Rosalie Edge's flavor of activism probably had a more widespread legacy.  Edge founded the Emergency Conservation Committee to advocate for conservation across the United States, including Kings Canyon and Olympic National Parks.  Edge chided Audubon leaders  for being influenced by special interests -- the board permitted hunting wildlife on Audubon sanctuaries and received money from hunting and sportsman interests.  Richard Pough, the founder of the Nature Conservancy, credited Edge as an inspiration for beginning his organization.

I think Edge's story provides a great window into the early days of the conservation movement, but also plenty of lessons that are still relevant today.  So I would strongly recommend reading Rosalie Edge, Hawk of Mercy: The Activist Who Saved Nature From Conservationists.  It is an excellent book about Rosalie Edge's life and conservation efforts, and gave me plenty of food for thought about today's efforts to save treasured wild places, and the importance of maintaining a conservation ethic free from influence by special interest groups.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How Many Plants Species in the Desert?

Would you expect that California's desert hosts gives the redwood forest a run for its money when it comes to plant biodiversity?  It's easy to take the desert for granted when all you want to do is zoom through it on the highway and get to your destination. But you are passing by an amazing and biologically diverse ecosystem.  There are at least 2,450 native plant species found in California's desert, according to a great article by Chris Clarke on desert life , posted at KCET. If you want to learn more about our amazing deserts, join Desert Biodiversity, a new organization dedicated to exploring, respecting and defending the deserts.
Read more

Mowing Vegetation as Mitigation: Trump Administration Practice Goes Unchallenged

Image
The Trump administration is again touting the practice of mowing thousands of acres of desert vegetation as environmentally-responsible, despite a preponderance of evidence to the contrary.  The draft environmental review of the Yellow Pine Solar project in southern Nevada claims that vegetation mowing - as opposed to bulldozing - will yield positive outcomes that are highly doubtful.   This positive framing of the construction practice misleads the public and decisionmakers and ignores decades of scientific research regarding the impacts of mechanized disturbance on desert wildlands.  According to the draft environmental review: "Mowing is becoming the standard on large site-type ROWs to prevent permanent impairment of public lands (as mandated by FLPMA) and in lieu of off-site mitigation... Mowing methods are designed to help preserve soils, biological soil crusts, soil seed banks, native perennial vegetation diversity and structure, and cacti and yucca species, and to resist
Read more

The Absurdity of the Cadiz Water Export Scheme

Image
The Department of Interior this month reversed a policy to make it easier for the Cadiz company to pump billions of gallons of water from an ancient Mojave Desert aquifer - killing off natural springs that wildlife depend upon - to ship that water to the lush landscaping of Orange County.   Cadiz still has other hurdles in its way, but the company's tenacity and willingness to line the pockets of politicians could spell doom for Mojave wildlife. Cadiz Calls it Conservation The Cadiz company has a contract to export nearly 16.3 billion gallons (yes, that is billion with a 'b') a year for 50 years from the Mojave to the Santa Margarita Water District ( SMWD ) in Orange County.  The Cadiz company claims that it will only pump water that would otherwise evaporate from a dry lake bed and that the aquifer will naturally recharge from rainfall, leaving no significant impacts on wildlife or groundwater levels.  According to Cadiz propaganda, this isn't a water export sche
Read more