Pennsylvania Game Commission: Dubaich Retires As Bureau of Wildlife Protection Director

HARRISBURG, Pa., April 23 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Pennsylvania Game Commission Executive Director Carl G. Roe today announced that Michael A. Dubaich has retired as the director of the agency’s Bureau of Wildlife Protection. Roe noted that Richard Palmer, currently the superintendent of the agency’s Ross Leffler School of Conservation, will serve as acting director.

“During his career with the Game Commission, Mr. Dubaich made significant contributions to the wildlife protection effort of the agency,” Roe said. “He was truly respected by all personnel in the agency, and his expertise in law enforcement will be missed.”

In 2003, Dubaich was named bureau director, and he coordinated and oversaw, along with the six regional directors and other law enforcement supervisors, the enforcement activities of the Game Commission’s 136 district and nearly 500 deputy Wildlife Conservation Officers.

In 1985, Dubaich began his career with the Game Commission as a Wildlife Conservation Officer trainee in the Ross Leffler School of Conservation. In 1986, after graduating with the school’s 19th Class, he was assigned to serve as a district Wildlife Conservation Officer in northern Adams County until 1989.

From 1989 to 1997, Dubaich worked for the Bureau of Law Enforcement as a special investigator focusing on illegal wildlife commercialization and poaching operations. In 1997, he was promoted to chief of the Bureau of Law Enforcement’s Special Operations Division.

In 2006, Dubaich was named Conservationist of the Year by the Pennsylvania Trappers Association for his efforts to promote trapping and furbearer management.

A 1978 graduate of Center Area High School in Beaver County, Dubaich attended Penn State University and Montana State University in Bozeman, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in fish and wildlife management.

Dubaich’s father and mother, Mike and Helen Dubaich, still live in Beaver County, where Dubaich said his conservation law enforcement training really began.

Created in 1895 as an independent state agency, the Game Commission is responsible for conserving and managing all wild birds and mammals in the Commonwealth, establishing hunting seasons and bag limits, enforcing hunting and trapping laws, and managing habitat on the 1.4 million acres of State Game Lands it has purchased over the years with hunting and furtaking license dollars to safeguard wildlife habitat. The agency also conducts numerous wildlife conservation programs for schools, civic organizations and sportsmen’s clubs.

The Game Commission does not receive any general state taxpayer dollars for its annual operating budget. The agency is funded by license sales revenues; the state’s share of the federal Pittman-Robertson program, which is an excise tax collected through the sale of sporting arms and ammunition; and monies from the sale of oil, gas, coal, timber and minerals derived from State Game Lands.

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   For Information Contact:   Jerry Feaser   717-705-6541   PGCNEWS@state.pa.us  

Pennsylvania Game Commission

CONTACT: Jerry Feaser, Pennsylvania Game Commission, +1-717-705-6541,PGCNEWS@state.pa.us

Web site: http://www.pgc.state.pa.us/