quezon@dtrc.dt.navy.mil (Quezon) (01/29/91)
I live in Herndon, VA, a small town on the outskirts of
Washington D.C. Those of us interested in raptors are fortunate
to have a local club, the Raptor Society of Metropolitan Washington
(RSMW), that holds monthly meetings to discuss topics related to
raptors and listen to very interesting presentations from sometimes
world renown guest speakers. Last night the RSMW held its monthly
meeting for January and the topic was "Falconry and Raptor Husbandry."
Jon Neviaser, vice president of the Virginia Falconers
Association, brought a sub-adult Guyana Ornate Hawk Eagle, the only
one in the world bred in captivity. David Mancini, a raptor biologist
and breeder, described the procedure that one goes through in
developing a wild bird into a trained hunting partner. The
description was similar to one that Sam Conway gave in an earlier
posting on this bulletin board. In a nut shell, the bird is caught
(usually a juvenile), manned, trained, and tamed before he really
becomes a good hunting partner. During his presentation, he displayed
an Egyptian Vulture, Peregrine Falcon, Gyrfalcon-Peregrine Falcon
hybrid, Harris' Hawk, and an Eagle Owl that were in various stages of
education, ie. some manned and tamed but not trained, or manned and
trained but not tamed, etc. He mentioned that in terms of
intelligence level, vultures are probably the smartest, while owls
are probably the "dumbest" raptors. David's Harris' Hawk was
probably the most entertaining, flying from a perch on the podium to
his gloved fist across the auditorium for a reward of a piece of meat.
As other falconers on the network have mentioned, the birds are
not allowed to fly freely until they are sufficiently trained to
insure that they will return to their handler. Even so, after a
while, many birds eventually decide not to return. This isn't always
the best thing for a trained bird since many trained and tamed birds
will just perch in the relative open where they are vulnerable to
eagles, owls, and man.
David also described how most people have a tendency to
anthopomorphize birds. That is, to associate human form or
personality to nonhuman things. He said that, for the most part, a
trained raptor doesn't really like its handler or the hawk dog used
to flush game, but he has come to associate the man and the dog with
game. The man and the dog are good at flushing game and if he hangs
out with them he is assured of catching something to eat. David says
that the bird thinks that the dog and the man are working for him,
while the dog thinks that the bird and the man are working for him.
David doesn't care what they think as long as they catch their quarry.
David also said that if he gets a little lazy on the hunt and lags
behind the dog, the hawk will just keep following the dog and the
two of them will go off hunting on their own.
David was responsible for the captive breeding of the Ornate
Hawk Eagle and described for us the complex process he went through
to get a pair of adult eagles to breed in captivity. Complications
involved the female killing the first male, unknown sizes of eagle
clutches, unknown length of incubation, females inexperience with
rearing the hatchling, etc.
All in all, a very interesting presentation. I would highly
recommend that those of you in the Washington D.C. metropolitan area
interested in raptors consider joining this worthwhile organization.
A.J. Quezon