Hawk Mountain — World's First Raptor Sanctuary

Up on the ridge at Hawk Mountain, something that had never existed anywhere on earth was born in nineteen thirty-four: a refuge dedicated entirely to the protection of birds of prey.

Before Rosalie Edge arrived, this mountainside was a killing field. Hawk Mountain sits directly on one of North America's great raptor migration corridors, and every autumn tens of thousands of hawks, eagles, and falcons funnel past its rocky lookouts. Hunters came from across the region to shoot them by the thousands. A Pennsylvania bounty on northern goshawks placed in nineteen twenty-nine made it even worse.

Edge, a fierce conservationist, leased the mountain, posted it against hunting, and hired a warden. The killing stopped almost overnight. She and her allies, including wildlife advocate Richard Pough, transformed the sanctuary into a world-class research and education center. Hawk Mountain is now visited by tens of thousands of birders each year. It is widely recognized as the world's first preserve for birds of prey, and it became a model for raptor conservation elsewhere.