1:   The number of wild birds is kept track of by state Fish and Game. Counts are taken during migration season over the flyways, as well as counts of resident birds and nests. Just this year certain counties in California were re-opened to the take of Northern Goshawks after having been closed for at least five years. (Those counties had been closed when I started looking at falconry. For all I know, it has been closed for ten or more.) Similar counting causes deer licenses to be limited and bag limits established.

Redtails and kestrels in the lower 48 are apprentices' birds because there is an ample supply. Goshawks in Alaska and red-shoulders in Mississippi are selected for the same reasons. It must be noted that THE MAJORITY OF THE WILD HAWKS DIE IN THEIR FIRST YEAR. My tiercel would have been one of them; he had a severe hunger streak that caused five feathers to break during the season. In the wild he probably would not have been able to endure the loss, four of them being primary feathers.

Finally, in addition to voluntary releases, the number of escaped falconer's birds also adds to the breeding population. In a 1994 California DFG report, 11 peregrine falcons, 4 goshawks, and 22 redtails were listed in the disposition reports as escaped. These numbers were between 30 and 66% of the total acquisitions (eyass + passage) in the same year. If these are typical numbers, it implies that, although we take birds from the wild, we return more than one might expect.

-Andrea Chen

2:   No. Actually the exact opposite is "probably" true. You have to understand raptor mortality and reproduction rates. Most raptors raise 3-5 young each year. Since they are at the very top of the food chain, most of these have to die to maintain a steady population. In fact, over 70 percent of the raptors hatched will not survive their first year. Most of the deaths, especially after fledging are due to competition for food. In nesting situations, taking one bird increases the food available to the remaining nestlings, creating a stronger brood.

Falconry has always been shown...time and time again, to have absolutely no measurable impact on wild raptor populations.... Think back......Raptors of all sorts were literally slaughtered by the thousands each year during migrations.... This went on and it took DDT to enter the picture to bring the populations over the edge...(in that region)...The effects of falconry are almost non-existent in comparison to what has up until protection, been the NORM.

-Tod Herman