KECA’s mission is to conserve and enhance Pennsylvania’s elk country for future generations. We accomplish that through three priorities: conservation education, habitat enhancement, and permanent land protection.
We place our habitat projects into two categories: on-site and off-site. On-site refers to all the habitat work that takes place at the Elk Country Visitor’s Center (ECVC). 245 acres make up the property around the ECVC, but only 80 acres of that are made up of wildlife openings, and out of that, we are aggressively managing 63 acres. Some of these openings are managed specifically for attracting elk and other wildlife to our many viewing areas, while others are designed to provide forage for elk and other wildlife while also allowing us to harvest the grasses once a year by baling the hay and storing it in our barn. This provides supplemental feeding to our two Belgian Horses, Jake and Donny.
If you are wondering why we have two horses, it’s because we offer covered wagon rides on the property.
Our off-site projects occur both on public and private lands. We work with our partners at Pennsylvania’s Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR) and the Pennsylvania Game Commission (PGC). KECA is currently managing the habitat on 6 separate areas of Elk and Sproul State Forest Lands. The state land managers come to KECA when they have critical habitat projects on public land for which they do not have adequate funding.
