Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!know!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!uwm.edu!ux1.cso.uiuc.edu!uxa.cso.uiuc.edu!rcb33483 From: rcb33483@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Kehaar) Newsgroups: rec.birds Subject: Re: falconry Message-ID: <1990Sep28.194421.11089@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> Date: 28 Sep 90 19:44:21 GMT References: <3999@gara.une.oz.au> Sender: news@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (News) Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana Lines: 114 rjacobs@gara.une.oz.au ( ABRI) writes: >I know I'll probably get flamed by those who consider falconry a cruel >and barbaric past-time (I think this attitude comes from a true lack of >understanding of the sport), but I'd like to hear from other falconers >and keep in touch with the news on North American falconry. First off, please excuse the last article. That was an nn backfire. Second, you'll probably be grateful to hear that this is not a flame. In fact, it's a compliment. Falconry, when properly practiced by someone who really cares about the birds' welfare, is a very noble sport. (Of course, there are always a few numbnuts who mistreat and/or abuse their birds...another case of a bad few giving a bad name to the many). In fact, it is the only method of hunting that I consider sporting. When you point a gun at an animal and shoot it, the animal has no chance at all of getting away. However, when you point a hawk at a quarry and release it, said quarry has a more-than- even chance of getting away. That's point number 1. Number two is that the birds themselves are quite a joy (most of the time) to be around. Unlike what radical animal-rights people say, a hawk has no sense of "freedom". The only reason they fly as they do, for the most part, is to find a meal. If you keep a hawk reasonably well-fed, and make sure it get plenty of exercise, it will be just as content as in the wild. However, a hawk is not a pet, and never will be. The entire art of falconry is based in controlling the bird by it's instincts--mainly, it's hunger instinct. The reasonis simple; the average hawk doesn't have a whole lot of learning capability, it runs primarily on instinct. They may be short on intelligence, but, on the other hand, once you really get to know them, they DO have personality... Three stories come to mind now, passed to me by my father, who some 30 odd years ago was an expert falconer. The first concerns a Golden Eagle that one of his friends used to own. The eagle was a serious pest in the neighborhood, not because it attacked anything, but because of it's choice of perches: it loved to perch on rooftop TV antennas. This posed a problem because the bird was really massive ( ~22 lbs) and bent hell out of the antennas it perched on. This drew a steady stream of complaints from the neighbors, and finally, the bird had to be sold. The second is really a sad one, and concerns an Northern Goshawk he owned for a short time. The story goes that he had tied the bird the perch in the standard way, put the hood on, and left with my mother. They were gone for about 3 hours. When they came back, the sight that greeted them was that of unparalleled horror. Apparently, somehow the bird had gotten the hood off its head, and began to struggle against the jesses. It fell off the perch, but could not get back on, and continued to struggle. The result was much like a pole trap; the bird rubbed all the skin off it's legs, down to the bone. The blood loss was massive; the entire room was spattered with it. After they got over their shock, they immediately took the bird to an emergency avian vet they knew; to no avail. The bird died en route due to shock and blood loss. That poor bird went through almost incomprehensible suffering during it's ordeal, and my parents, who are very sensitive people, knew it. 30 years later, a description of this ordeal is enough to bring tears to my father's eyes. As well as tragedy, there were some funny moments during my father's period of falconry. The most famous (among my father's friends anyway) could aptly by tited "Kestrel in the kitchen". The setting is this. In the living room is jessed to a perch an American Kestrel. In the kitchen, which ajoins the living room, is a 10-lb package of ground beef in a cellophane wrapping. With this tableau in place, my mother left to go shopping. When she got back, the scene that greeted her was quite a surprise. During her absence, the bird managed to chew through it's jesses and escape--into the kitchen. There, it found the hamburger, and setted down for what turned out to be an unparalleled orgy. The bird stuffed itself on the hamburger, found the cellophane wrapping toothsome and ate that too. By the time my mother walked in on the party, the bird's crop was so swollen the bird looked like it has swallowed a couple of golf balls. My mother scolded hell out of that bird, which did not give any indication of caring in the least. In fact, it acted like it was high on something for several hours after my mother retied it to it's perch. And, for several days after that, she said the bird was regurgitating little cellophane balls--a reminder to her of that day. Finally a word on the legality of falconry. The main reason why it is illegal in Australia, is because of the huge amount of damage done by the sheep and livestock farmers to the raptor population. From what I have picked up, huntingof raptors illegally down there by farmers is still a big problem. The *&^**ing farmers (here, as well as in Australia) don't seem to realize that they are stabbing themselves in the back, for raptors control rodent and insect pests that eat crops and carry numerous diseases. The population simply can't take the strain of the most insidious raptor-killer of them all: the falconry black market. The middlemen that capture the hawks have not the qualms that responsible falconers do about keeping their birds healthy. When a falconer looks at a hawk, he sees an animal that it is his responsibilityto take care of. When a middleman looks at a hawk, he sees nothing but dollar signs. However, this isn't the real danger; that is the tremendous number of hawks taken out for the black market. Any hawk thus captured is biologically dead; it can't breed and raise young. With all the pressure already on raptors from hunting, pesticides, and habitat destruction, in some places the populationjust can't afford this additional pressure. BTW, the biggest culprits for hunting raptors in the world are Italy and Spain; these Mediterranean countries consider anything that flies fair game to be shot. Both have dumped big piles of manure on international protection laws, and any protest or attempt at enforcement is squashed by either politicians or hitmen. They are one of the major reasons the European White Stork is still declining, despite it's popularity in the rest of Europe. Other Medeterranean countries are also big culprits in that respect. But, I digress.. As a final note, the raptor black market IS savage and barbaric, but if anybody says that the sport of falconry itself is, think of these two examples from Audubon's travels. Once, Audubon traveled to New Orleans, where he witnessed about 15 French gunmen slaughter _60,000_ Golden Plovers within hours. Another time he visited what was to become Hawk Mountain Sanctuary. Here, he witnessed another carnage; during migration, the ridge was packed with hunters, and everytime a hawk got in range it was shot down as fast as a Japanese Zero in WWII. The valley below was littered with hundreds of thousands of bodies, as recovery rate for the shot hawks was near zero. If that isn't savage and barbaric, I don't know what is! -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- R. Cody Buchmann ^.^ "Kehaar" "He tell *me* the plan...I *know* the email: rcb33483@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu plan!" -Watership Down. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------