DUBOIS – Former Pennsylvania Game Commission biologist Gary Alt has been chosen to speak at Penn State DuBois for the year’s Umbaugh Lecture.
The lecture is scheduled for 7 p.m. until 8:30 p.m. March 31, in Hiller Auditorium. This event is free and open to the public.
Made possible by the generosity of Robert and Joyce Umbaugh, the Umbaugh Lecture brings highly qualified speakers in the fields of science and technology to the campus each year.
Alt will review highlights of his career since graduating from the first wildlife technology class at Penn State DuBois in 1972.
He will share experiences as the head of one of the countries’ largest black bear and white-tailed deer research and management programs while working for the Pennsylvania Game Commission.
He will review some of the research results, as well as discuss the perceptions, politics and realities of managing these controversial species.
Additionally, Alt will share his personal and professional experiences as a wildlife management consultant, and as a natural history and photographic tour leader.
He has led more than 60 tours to the Norwegian and Canadian arctic to view polar bears, to multiple destinations in Alaska for grizzly bears, plus excursions to view humpback whales, migratory caribou herds, and to multiple national park destinations in eastern Africa.
Alt worked as a wildlife research biologist for the Pennsylvania Game Commission for more than 27 years, and for 22 of those years he led the statewide black bear research management program.
He was head of the statewide deer research and management program for five years. During his tenure, Alt was responsible for launching some of the largest field studies in the country on black bears and white-tailed deer, and made some of the most sweeping changes to bear and deer management in the history of Pennsylvania.
With colleague Hal Korber, Alt produced a video on black bears that generated more than $1.5 million for the Pennsylvania Game Commission and won five awards the International Wildlife Film Festival in Missoula, Montana.
The two teamed up again and produced more than 35,000 deer management videos that were distributed to the general public, which were instrumental in an educational campaign to win support for major policy changes.
An active public educator, Alt has presented more than 1,500 lectures to more than 300,000 people during his career. He has been honored in Time Magazine as a Conservation Innovator and his work has been published in a variety of professional journals and featured in People Magazine, National Geographic World, Sports Illustrated, Readers Digest, National Wildlife, the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, New York Times, Philadelphia Inquirer, Washington Post and hundreds of other magazines and newspapers. Alt’s work has also been given national television coverage by Good Morning America, CBS Sunday Morning News, National Geographic Explorer, and more.