KECA continues to educate, enhance and protect
KANE - Keystone Elk Country Alliance (KECA) Conservation Education Coordinator Ben Porkolab, gave an informational presentation Wednesday afternoon at New Thomson House in Kane.
Porkolab, who was born and raised in Kane, delighted eager listeners on all things elk with an emphasis on the KECA's ongoing conservation work.
As a former school teacher for many years in Emporium, he explained that he was invited to become the education coordinator for KECA because of his experience as an educator and his love of the outdoors.
He explained the many methods of teaching about what KECA does through free visitor center classes on weekends, student field trips, and distance learning with students who can be virtually anywhere.
Last year alone, KECA educated more than 40,000 people. While KECA educates a lot of children throughout the year, Porkolab explained they also educate just as many adults through various clubs or organizations who come to the center on field trips. Last year, the alliance taught over 5,000 visitors who came to the center.
The classes have ranged from not just education on the elk, but tree identification, maple syruping, mushroom foraging, and trapping just to name a few.
“If it has to do with the outdoors, conservation, the environment, hunting, fishing, anything outdoors, I'm allowed to teach it, which is really great. Because that's what I like teaching,” he said.
He also explained the importance of KECA's mission, which is to conserve and enhance Pennsylvania's elk country for future generations.
“That way when I'm gone and we're all gone 200 years from now, hopefully, the people that are still living, our grandchildren and our great, great grandchildren, they can still enjoy Pennsylvania's wild elk herd,” he said.
Porkolab pointed out KECA's three missions of conservation education, habitat enhancement, and permanent land protection.
He explained the delicate nature of maintaining and protecting the herds' habitat with projects that have enhanced 3,107 acres of land since 2010, and which in turn improves the habitat of other wildlife. Last year, more than 700 acres was enhanced, which could include seeding, fertilization, liming or mowing.
While 200 years ago Pennsylvania once had 100,000 elk located all throughout the state, overhunting and loss of habitat saw the last of Eastern Woodland Elk, which was in the 1860s.
“Market hunting was when hunters could hunt every day and hunt for as much as they wanted,” Porkolab explained. “So market hunters hunted the Eastern Woodland Elk, more or less, to extinction.”
For a period of about 50 years there were no elk in the state, but not long after the Pennsylvania Game Commission established in 1895, one of its first goals was to reintroduce elk back into the state. The game commission then introduced the Rocky Mountain Elk from the four subspecies as the most suitable for Pennsylvania environment.
“The Pennsylvania Game Commission said, ‘Rocky Mountain Elk should do well in Pennsylvania.' So from 1913 to 1926, they live trapped Rocky Mountain Elk in South Dakota, Wyoming and Colorado and they brought them back to Pennsylvania by train,” he said “Imagine that, sitting in a train full of live elk. If you told somebody that they'd probably think you were crazy, but it happened.”
Several other states followed suit over the years reintroducing elk back into their states, but Pennsylvania was the first. There were 177 Rocky Mountain Elk released in North Central Pennsylvania. No elk have been reintroduced into the state since then and the current herd are all ancestors of the original herd. Today there are 1,400 elk within 10 counties of the state.
Porkolab said the main thing that has changed over the years and has allowed the elk herds to flourish is the community's perspective. Because of conservation efforts and herd management, the elk are less destructive on private lands staying within certain boundaries created by enhanced habitats. And tourism has increased through the years bringing more money into the region.
“Through more tourism, more support and better habitat and with the elk range spreading, it's a good thing,” he said.
For more information on KECA educational opportunities, visit their website at experienceelkcountry.com.