Retired Game Commission employee urges continued land acquisition to support hunting and Clean Streams work

A retired Pennsylvania Game Commission employee told commissioners that the agency—s century-long land-acquisition program created public hunting access and revenue streams and urged continued purchases to both secure hunting access and to support stream reclamation projects.

Dennis Dusa, who retired from the commission in April 2012 after 35 years with the agency, said acquisitions over the last 100 years provided public hunting land and generated revenue through timber sales, right-of-way leases and payments related to natural-gas development. "The amount of money currently in the game fund is jaw dropping," Dusa said. He told the commission that buying land can help offset disruptions from gas development and that purchasing parcels adjacent to polluted streams is a way the Game Commission can participate in the Clean Streams initiative without transferring game-fund dollars directly to other programs.

Dusa described partnering with the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection's Bureau of Abandoned Mine Reclamation on watershed-treatment projects where securing public land along stream corridors helped restore aquatic life. He suggested commissions take site visits to treatment plants and cited examples in the northern-central part of the state, saying reclamation work returned trout to previously orange, biologically dead streams.

Why it matters: public-land acquisition affects public access, habitat management and how state agencies can coordinate reclamation projects. Dusa urged the commission to keep seeking purchase opportunities and to view acquisition as an investment that can expand hunting opportunity and support watershed cleanup.

No formal action on land-acquisition policy was taken during the public-comment period. The commission recessed for a short break after public testimony.