Animal evolution in the Mon Valley

In my last column, I wrote about the changes in the physical environment of the Mon Valley since the arrival of the first settlers. We looked at the “bones” of the area, the trees, the rivers and the streams. This month we will look at the impact that settlement had on the animals that lived in our woods.

Not all of the creatures that lived in the Mon Valley in the 18th century were affected in the same way by the arrival of the settlers.

Some have completely disappeared from our hills and river valleys, never to return. Others were driven to the point of extinction but rebounded as conditions changed. The final group has something in common with the human population of the Mon Valley — immigrants.

These are the animals that are common today but were unknown in earlier times.

Animals that are gone

When the first settlers arrived in Western Pennsylvania, they found a mature ecosystem supporting a multi-tiered food chain from insects to apex predators.

These settlers set out to “conquer the wilderness” and waged active war on the animals that dwelt near their cabins and settlements.

They saw some animals as threats, others as resources, and still others as simply “in the way.”

Today we know that apex predators play an important role in a healthy ecosystem.

Our less-enlightened forebears saw large carnivores as the enemy; as dangerous beasts that preyed on their livestock and even threatened humans caught off guard. Settlers hunted many of these beautiful creatures to extinction.

Along with the farm tools and rifles settlers brought with them from Europe, there was also an ingrained fear and hatred of wolves.

This is apparent in the “big bad wolf” fairy and folk tales common all over the continent. Despite the many stories of wolves attacking humans, the historical record indicates that these attacks were extremely rare. Attacks on livestock were far more common as sheep, calves, and chickens were easy prey for wolves.

Starting in the 17th century, the colony — and later the state — of Pennsylvania, paid a bounty on wolves.

Hunters only had to take their “wolf scalps” the local district justice to collect their payments. A Washington County ledger book at Pittsburgh’s Heinz History Center records that more than 100 hunters were paid wolf bounties in just a few years in the 1780s. In addition to the bounties, wolf fur was prized for winter clothing. The last wolf sighted in Pennsylvania was in 1892, but they were driven from the Mon Valley by the mid-19th century.

The last mountain lions left in Pennsylvania are carved in stone on the Penn State campus. Known as panthers, painters, catamounts, pumas or cougars, the big cats made their home all over Pennsylvania but were hunted to extinction by the 1870s. The stealthy nature of mountain lions inspired fear in the hearts of early settlers. Ambush hunters, they lunged at prey from hiding. Accounts of mountain lion attacks on humans are much more credible than the stories of wolf attacks.

Cougars are still common in the West. Several years ago, while visiting San Francisco, I saw a TV news report of a child being snatched from a school playground and killed in a suburban neighborhood.

Mountain lions are a bit like Bigfoot in Pennsylvania — there have been supposed sightings but no proof of their existence in the wooded regions in the center of the state. The Pennsylvania Game Commission cannot say with absolute certainty that there are no cougars anywhere in the state, but they say it is highly unlikely.

Given the population density of the state and the number of roads crossing our forests, it would be hard for the cats to remain hidden. Upon investigation, most mountain lion sightings reported to the Game Commission turned out to be large feral domestic cats. It is possible that a few of the state’s smaller feline predators, bobcats, might still call the remoter section of the Mon Valley home.

Some of the large species preyed on by wolves and cougars are also gone from Western Pennsylvania’s woods. Elk were never as common as their cousins, the whitetail deer, but they did call the Mon Valley home.

Elk meat was considered a delicacy and the large ungulates were soon hunted to extinction. Today a small herd survives in the appropriately named Elk County.

Historians debate whether bison were living in Western Pennsylvania at the time that the settlers arrived. The number of “buffalo” place names in Western Pennsylvania, such as Buffalo Creek in Finley Township, provides good evidence that early settlers encountered the woolly animals when they arrived here. The American buffalo never thrived east of the Mississippi like they did on the Great Plains, but they grazed in the forest clearings and along the river banks. If they were indeed here, they were a windfall for Native American hunters. Archeological evidence found at the Meadowcroft rock shelter includes passenger pigeon bones showing that Paleo-Indians also feasted on the birds. Although the birds survived native hunting for thousands of years, they could not survive the shotguns of 19th century market hunters. Using largebore guns, these professional hunters soon wiped out the birds for their meat and hides.

The passenger pigeon is the poster child of an extinct species. Passenger pigeons once migrated through Western Pennsylvania (again the Mon Valley’s Pigeon Creek offers a geographic clue) in flocks that numbered in the billions and stretched for miles. Early settlers said that they darkened the sky when they passed overhead.

When the birds roosted for the night, their weight would break the branches from trees and their droppings would blanket the ground.

Their abundance resulted in thousands of these birds for sale in urban meat markets. Eventually, the population of passenger pigeons declined to the point that they no longer had a viable breeding population and they went extinct. The last wild passenger pigeon was shot just west of the Mon Valley in Ohio in 1890.

Animals that have made a comeback

At 73 years old, I can remember a time when there were no deer in the Mon Valley. They were hunted to near extinction in the 19th century and only remained in the wilder, less populous area of the state. Beginning in the 20th century, the Pennsylvania Game Commission began protecting and managing the state’s deer herd. Their effort was very successful, and the deer took advantage of the absence of their traditional predators to expand their range and increase their population. It turns out that suburban yards are a much better food source for deer than the virgin forest of pioneer times.

Today, I have to drive slowly through my neighborhood in the evening to avoid hitting deer with my car.

Whitetail deer have made such a strong comeback that they have become a nuisance species in many areas.

Like deer, wild turkeys owe a debt of gratitude to the state game commission.

Once all but extinct in Pennsylvania, the game wardens spent decades working to build up flocks of turkeys.

Again they were remarkably successful and flocks of the big bronze birds spread from the Pennsylvania State Game Lands to conquer most of the state. Recently I counted 35 turkeys in a neighbor’s yard in White Oak.

To give the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission equal time, they have been successful in reintroducing paddlefish to the Monongahela River. Paddlefish, a large relative of the sturgeon with a long flat bill that gives the fish its name, were once common in the Monongahela, Allegheny and Ohio rivers. They disappeared sometime in the late 19th or early 20th century due to sediment, pollution and the installation of the lock and dam system. The Fish Commission began reintroducing the prehistoric-looking paddlefish in 1991 using fertilized eggs from a wild river in Kentucky. They gave up the effort several years later when the paddlefish population didn’t seem to take hold. The fish seems to have other ideas, and from time to time an angler reels in a paddlefish in the Monongahela. One was caught as recently as 2017 near the point in Pittsburgh. These catches seem to indicate that a small breeding population of the fish is hanging on in our rivers. (If you happen to catch a paddlefish, document the fish, return it to the river and report your information to the Pa. Fish Commission) Of course, the real “comeback kid” story is the bald eagle. As a child, I remember an old neighbor who had a somewhat worse-for-thewear stuffed eagle on top of a bookshelf in his living room. He used to brag, “That’s the last eagle shot in White Oak; my daddy shot him right out of a tree.”

Eagles survived two potential extinction events. Our neighbor’s story is a good example of the first one, as eagles were almost hunted to extinction. Thought to be a threat to livestock and even accused of carrying off small children, the state paid a 50cent bounty on all eagles and raptors turned into the state.

Eventually, conservationists realized that our national symbol might disappear and began protecting eagles.

Eagles were beginning to rebound when they faced an even more dangerous threat.

The use of DDT and other insecticides weakened the bird’s eggs, and the population again fell to levels where the viability of the species was in question. The combination of the banning of DDT and the restoration of their habitat has led to a resurgence of the eagle population, particularly in the Mon Valley. Today nature lovers enjoy watching our national bird along our rivers. They have even set up nest keeping at the U.S.

Steel Irvin Works in West Mifflin.

I’m new in town — animals that moved here

It’s hard to imagine, but once upon a time, there were no honeybees in the Mon Valley before the arrival of the pioneers. Native Americans called honey bees the “white man’s flies,” and knew that the arrival of swarms of honeybees presaged the coming of new settlements. Prior to the coming of honeybees, the work of pollination was done by other native bee species such as bumblebees.

It is interesting that now that honeybee populations are in decline, the population of native species has increased and returned to their old job.

Other animals have moved to fill the niches left open by the elimination of native species.

Coyotes are now common in the area, filling the space left open by the absence of wolves and cougars in the ecosystem. Possums were unknown in the Northeast during colonial times. The changing habitat and lack of predators allowed them to expand their range northward.

The absence of passenger pigeons left environmental niches to be filled by other now common birds.

Starling were introduced to New York’s Central Park in 1892 by a scholar who wanted North America to hold all the species of birds mentioned in the works of William Shakespeare. In a very short time, they spread across the country and multiplied. Common pigeons, known in Europe as “rock doves,” were introduced to this country as a food source. Colonial buildings often featured “dovecotes,” large birdhouses that made capturing the birds easier.

“Squab” was considered a delicacy. Of course, some birds escaped and found new homes in America’s towns and cities.

Conclusion

As we have seen, there have been many changes over the centuries in the wildlife that live in our woods and waters. Who is to say that all these changes are bad? I think we would be a little worried about our kids waiting for the school bus if there were packs of wolves and mountain lions lurking in the nearby woods. What would a billion birds roosting in your neighborhood would do for the local car wash’s business?

While some creatures peacefully coexist with our modern civilization, we need lots of space between us and some other species.

I believe there are several important lessons here. First, we need to maintain wilderness areas where Mother Nature can continue to run things her own way, and second, we need to think about the impact of our actions on our wild neighbors.

Jim Busch of White Oak is a freelance writer for the Mon Valley Independent.