At 09:03 PM 2/15/98 -0800, Tom Foote wrote:

> re-read my statement..that's what I said. No falconer
> would buy an illegal bird..(i.e., one without a band)

Sorry, Tom, but this seems overly optimistic. It's like saying
"no hunter would ever poach".

OK, some take the point of view that a hunter who poaches can't be
a hunter, so tautologically then "hunters don't poach" becomes a
truism, but there is no dictionary support for the notion that a hunter
is no longer a hunter if he fires 1 nanosecond before the season opens
as opposed to firing 1 nanosecond afterwards.

Of course most falconers are legit, just as most hunters are, but I have
no reason to believe 100% of falconers are honest.

After all, we can't claim 100% of birders are honest. The workload of
records committees would drop if this were true...

BTW, a peregrine was taken from the PAS mews a month ago, after the
barred mews window was pried apart. It was due for release a couple of
days later.

Falconer? Or not-falconer presumably
because illegally taking a bird makes them a "poacher", and therefore the
person can't be a "falconer" even if he/she trains/maintains/hunts the
bird in accordance with falconer lore? It was a first-year
bird.




- Don Baccus, Portland OR <dhogaza at pacifier.com>
Nature photos, on-line guides, and other goodies at
http://donb.photo.net