One of the benefits of writing professionally for the last 27 years has been the opportunity to meet, converse with and befriend many people who share my love for the outdoors. Unfortunately, time has a way of limiting just how well you get to know someone.
Such is the case with Tom Hardisky, aquatic furbearer specialist with the Pennsylvania Game Commission, who died unexpectedly last week at the age of 59. Hardisky worked in the Game Mammals Section of the Game Management Division. He was responsible for coordinating and conducting monitoring, research and management of aquatic furbearers with special emphasis on beaver, otter, mink and muskrat.
Over the years, I had the privilege to talk at length with Hardisky about our shared interest in wildlife, particularly furbearers and trapping. The numerous times we talked, the conversation would quickly change from my initial topic I was writing about, to a free-ranging discussion about trapping and furbearers.
Hardisky knew wildlife, especially furbearers. Since the start of his career in 1986, he has worked as a biologist studying black bear for the Florida Game and Freshwater Fish Commission; a beaver damage specialist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Tennessee; a wildlife database manager for the Pennsylvania commission’s Bureau of Land Management (the start of his career for the state); a farmland wildlife section supervisor, heading pheasant restoration research comparing Sichuan and ring-necked pheasants; a furbearer and farmland wildlife section supervisor, overseeing research and monitoring of all furbearer and farmland wildlife species; a wildlife management supervisor for the northeast region of the state game commission; and most recently, an aquatic furbearer biologist.
His projects have included beaver harvest management, trap testing, furbearer population monitoring, pheasant research, monitoring of avian and mammal populations, habitat evaluation, wildlife health, harvest management, and public/private landowner technical assistance.
Dave Eckels of Finleyville, a past director for the Pennsylvania Trappers Association, remembers Hardisky as a dedicated biologist who performed research in our area.
“Tom came to our corner of the state, both Districts 2 and 3, as part of the statewide muskrat study. In 2014, he came to the fur sales to check both sex and age of harvested muskrats as part of that study,” said Eckels. “For the last three years, he has been working on a beaver reproductive study, where he came and checked all the beaver carcasses from our area. We sat in my garage and talked for an hour. He picked up all the District 3 carcasses at my place.”
Eckels said Hardisky was not just a biologist, but also was very active in the sport he loved.
“He was a trapper, trapping in both Pennsylvania and Mississippi, and an active member of the Pennsylvania Trappers Association," Eckels said. "He always went to the state banquets and he was well respected by his colleagues. He will be sorely missed.”
I never had the chance to meet Hardisky, as we lived at opposite ends of the state, but from what I gathered during our conversations, “sorely missed” maybe an understatement. All Pennsylvanians, sportsmen and especially trappers have lost a biologist who worked tirelessly for the betterment of the state’s wildlife and a friend whose love for his job and the people he met was as big as the outdoors.
Mike Barcaskey can be reached at mikebarcaskey@outlook.com.