I haven't seen the commercial, but I can assure you that is not a redtail.
Its an African augar buzzard (or augar hawk). I have seen a bunch of
commercial and Hollywood video work that have used them.



Right now the USFWS has a major beef with any raptors protected by the
Migratory Bird Treaty Act being used for any commercial reasons, so video
work involving raptors must either be done outside of the US or use exotics
that are not protected by the MBTA.



Certainly it's a good thing to keep people from blasting redtails to
decorate hats, but I believe they are being ridiculous to draw the line
where they are. There are plenty of MBTA birds in captivity because of
injury, or because they were captive bred or other reasons. Putting them in
front of a camera HELPS the wild birds, it dosnt hurt them.



Geoff Hirschi

Snohomish, Wa



Date: Wed, 17 Mar 2010 21:27:45 -0700

From: Hans-Joachim Feddern <thefedderns at gmail.com>

Subject: [Tweeters] Odd Red-Tailed Hawk in TV Commercials

To: Tweeters <tweeters at u.washington.edu>

Message-ID:

<8c3d3c131003172127y2789ed93p97fa1ea18af5419a at mail.gmail.com>

Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"



Has anyone seen the Farmers Insurance commercial with an odd black and

white, but obvious Red-Tailed Hawk? It also features a long lens

Photographer setting up and a P&S guy, reminding me of the recent

photographic gear discussion! Oh, no sides taken by me! Let us not talk

about it again!



Hans Feddern

Twin Lakes/Federal Way,WA.

the fedderns at gmail.com