Lycoming Audubon Society (Williamsport, PA) accomplished something rather remarkable over the past seven years ... they put 25 peregrine falcons back into Pennsylvania skies! (A future Networker will chronicle the whereabouts of some of these maturing peregrines.) As potential inspiration to other chapters, here's a brief timetable of some of the significant events leading up to and occurring during the course of Lycoming's Peregrine Falcon Reintroduction Project (PFRP), which ran from 1991 until recently (and may continue):

• 1991 -- Local falconer Mike Kuriga attends PA Falconry & Hawk Trust annual field meet, and is impressed with Pennsylvania Game Commission (PGC) biologist Dan Brauning's presentation on the then-new Peregrine Reintroduction Project (PFRP).
• '92 -- Mike Kuriga, Dan Brauning, and Jerry Zeidler confer and decide to address Lycoming AS about co-sponsoring the PFRP. Co-sponsors will eventually include the PGC, Lycoming AS, local (became tri-county) community residents, schools, businesses, service organizations and sportsman's clubs.
• '93 -- Fundraising efforts become necessary when the anticipated "free" birds from PGC become unavailable. The chapter and its co-sponsors raise sufficient funds to purchase two young birds from a propagator and "hack" them to the wild (the "hacking" includes nest box construction; installation of surveillance TV on hotel roof to permit viewing of the young birds and their "hack" box by thousands visiting the hotel lobby); food for the birds; feeding, etc. Public response to the PFRP becomes astronomical! Long-range plans are developed and instituted.
• '94-'97 -- The funds generated by Lycoming's wildlife art auction (see peregrine print), donations from the community, and heaps of volunteer efforts by Auduboners, result in a grand total of 25 peregrines taking to the Pennsylvania skies.

NOTE: Lycoming has a "sister" chapter, Lakota Sioux AS in Sioux City, South Dakota; the sister chapter now has a PFRP modeled on Lycoming's.

For More Info, on the fundraising print (color; limited edition; still available), project history, status of hacked birds, or other details of conducting a PFRP, Contact: Jerry Zeidler, Lycoming AS; HC 64, Box 278; Trout Run, PA 17771; ph & FAX: 717/435-4606.