Tweets--

I am forwarding a response to Martha Jordan's
post on falconry.

Tom



Tom Foote footet at elwha.evergreen.edu
Lab II
The Evergreen State College (360) 866-6000 x6118
Olympia, WA 98505


-----Original Message-----
From: Toby Bradshaw [mailto:toby at u.washington.edu]
Sent: Friday, July 28, 2000 8:09 AM
To: Martha Jordan
Cc: tweeters at u.washington.edu
Subject: Incidental take of protected wildlife by
falconers


Martha,

I saw your post on the Tweeters list. You are
mistaken in your claims about the proposed rule.
Please read the draft below, submitted to the
Commission by the WDFW, and I'm sure you will see
that your concerns are misplaced. The proposed
rule is intended to protect falconers from
prosecution for rare accidents which lead to the
taking of non-target species. The rule
specifically prohibits the taking of threatened
and endangered species. Note that falconers ASKED
to for the rule to REQUIRE that incidentally taken
wildlife be released unharmed whenever possible.
Washington is only the second state to incorporate
such language into an incidental take rule. Many
falconers, myself included, regularly practice
'catch and release' for all quarry, not just
incidental takes.

Falconry is the most challenging of all hunting
sports, requiring more effort and providing more
recreation per head of game taken than any other
hunting method. The Washington Department of Fish
and Wildlife recognizes this and affords special
seasons to falconers in recognition of its
insignificant biological impact on both raptors
and their prey.

You may not like any form of hunting, and you may
object to falconry for other reasons. Please
recognize that falconers were and are instrumental
in the recovery of high-profile species such as
the peregrine, and without us the skies would be
less interesting today.

Aldo Leopold had this to say about falconry.
Please consider his words carefully before you
impugn the conservation ethic of falconers.

>From 'A man's leisure time' in A Sand County
Almanac with essays on conservation from Round
River by Aldo Leopold, Oxford University Press
1966

The most glamorous hobby I know of today is the
revival of falconry. It has a few addicts in
America and perhaps a dozen in England a
minority indeed. For two and a half cents one can
buy and shoot a cartridge that will kill the heron
whose capture by hawking required months or years
of laborious training of both the hawk and the
hawker. The cartridge, as a lethal agent, is a
perfect product of industrial chemistry. One can
write a formula for its lethal reaction. The
hawk, as a lethal agent, is the perfect flower of
that still utterly mysterious alchemy evolution.
No living man can, or possibly ever will,
understand the instinct of predation that we share
with our raptorial servant. No man-made machine
can, or ever will, synthesize that perfect
coordination of eye, muscle, and pinion as he
stoops to his kill. The heron, if bagged, is
inedible and hence useless (although the old
falconers seem to have eaten him, just as a Boy
Scout smokes and eats a flea-bitten summer
cottontail that has fallen victim to his sling,
club, or bow). Moreover the hawk, at the
slightest error in technique of handling, may
either 'go tame' like Homo sapiens or fly away
into the blue. All in all, falconry is the
perfect hobby.

Toby Bradshaw, Research Associate Professor
College of Forest Resources Box 354115
3501 NE 41st St.
University of Washington, Seattle WA 98195 USA
206.616.1796 (ph) 206.685.2692 (FAX)
--------------------------------------------------
--------------
NEW SECTION

WAC 232-12-106 Provisions for accidental take
by falconers

(1) When a raptor being used in falconry
accidentally takes any species of wildlife
('quarry') for which the hunting season is not
currently open, the falconer must release the
quarry if it is not seriously injured. If the
quarry has been seriously injured or killed, the
falconer may not retain or possess the quarry, but
the raptor may feed upon the quarry before leaving
the site of the kill.

(2) If the accidentally killed quarry is a
species identified on the Washington Candidate
species list (for endangered, threatened, or
sensitive status) or specifically identified by
the director, the falconer shall, before leaving
the site of the kill, record upon a form provided
by the Department, or upon a facsimile, the
falconer's name, falconry permit number, date,
species and sex (if known) of the quarry, and
exact location of the kill. The falconer shall
submit the information to the Washington
Department of Fish and Wildlife falconry permit
coordinator by April 1 following the close of the
current hunting season.

(3) Accidental kill by any falconer in any
license year shall not exceed a total of three
individuals of any combination of species
designated under (2) above.

(4) Not withstanding any other section of this
rule, take of species protected under the federal
Endangered Species Act or those designated as
endangered, threatened, or sensitive in Washington
under WAC 232-12-011 or 232-12-014 is not
permitted.