Falconry: Lost birds 

@Benson They mean well but they just don't understand.

Most young barn owls don't make first winter in UK I feed them trapped mice seems to help

Dang

Gonzalo Rodriguez just don’t let it happen again Mr. Rodriguez, it wasn’t entirely your fault.... haha

Reed Hill I have wanted to do security cameras. It is a wise investment. I know several falconers who have gone this route. It is a great idea

Well depends on how you look at it. By definition, hey Falconer is someone who is training and hunting with a bird of prey. Someone who is doing it illegally, would likely still call themselves of Falconer. But my point is that online I always see that the assumption is that a bird loose with equipment on it, is from a legal Falconer. I never EVER here anyone suggest that it might be from an illegally practicing falconer, a zoo, an aviary, or a falconer (legal or otherwise) from a different state or even country. There is a blatant “anti falconer” bias in America in this situation. Always. Yes legal falconers birds do sometimes take off and are not found, and often it is from circumstances like I outlined in my video. But the point of my video was to attempt to open people’s minds and try to break down some of the rampant bias. And I also have to report, that illegal falconry is also rampant. Not in any big scandalous way. Just there are countless people out there who find an injured or orphaned hawk or baby kestrel and think “wow this would make a nice pet!” They don’t know about the laws, read a few books on equipment, and keep the bird illegally for a few months (not knowing or caring that they are breaking the law) and then the bird takes off in them because they don’t know what they are doing. Are used to do falconry and wildlife education out reach programs all over the state. And at the end of almost every show, somebody either a teenager or an adult, would come up after and tell me their story. Of how a year or two ago they had a kestrel or a red tail and it took off on them. Their story was almost always identical. No permits, no knowledge of needing a permit, no sponsor, came across a fledgling red tail, kestrel or swainsons hawk, and lost it after a few months. And educators... the Hogle Zoo used to have a world Class flighted bird show run by Steve Chindgren. But of course they made him have the show in the summer. With extreme temperatures of heat, flight motivations are not as strong. And occasionally a bird would take off. This happened at the Tracy aviary as well. In these cases, the birds were always recovered. But sometimes it took a few hours. And if anyone snapped a photo of one of these birds wearing equipment and posted it online, again the assumption would be of a falconer losing their bird. It is just good to be open minded is all, and not always assume we know the full story when you find a bird out there with equipment. And since the bias is always “look! It’s a falconers bird!” Then in answer to your original question, I propose the opposite. Isn’t it too easy to claim that free birds With equipment ARE falconry birds? And because of that bias, isn’t it wiser to keep an open mind as to the many possibilities?