The Not So Friendly Skies

Red-shouldered hawks, the wildlife-human interface and finding common values

Red-shouldered hawk, pencil and watercolor on plant pring

The first raptor I ever worked with was a female, red-shouldered hawk named Phoenix. It was 1990 and I was struggling with an avian sciences major (soon to be a creative writing major.) Volunteering at the UC Davis Raptor Center, I shyly held my dreams of being a licensed falconer close to my vest. I still remember that nervous first moment of lifting a raptor on my glove and her vibrant ruddy chest, even if the details have faded.

Years before, Phoenix had been shot and the veterinarians had saved her life, but they couldn’t save her wing. She was a calm bird, but she also greeted the world with silence and an unfocused stare. Her silence was odd in retrospect, because I’ve never met a member of the species that didn’t have a lot to say about everything and constantly. So, while you never forget your first, I never felt any sort of connection with her. This is probably where my dismissal of red-shouldered hawks started but then, I wasn’t the only one crafting narratives.

I soon learned that the director and his staff hated falconers. They spoke of horrible people who stole helpless nestlings away from their parents and then gave them abhorrent care. They claimed that falconers’ birds arrived in rehab near-death frequently. Yet, over the two years I worked there, I only recall one. The only reason I knew about it was that I overheard a heated conversation shouted into the receiver of a beige plastic rotary phone. The director yelled, “You are never getting this falcon back!”

I had a hard time believing that most falconers weren’t like me. I was there to soak up as much knowledge as I could about caring for raptors because I loved them. Surely, other falconers followed similar paths. All the same, I kept my mouth shut, asked curious questions, and found we agreed deeply on the things that were most important. We wanted raptors to be healthy. We wanted them to remain in the wild for generations to come. And we wanted other people to love them too.

It was only in 1972 that the Migratory Bird Treaty Act was amended to include all raptors. People of European descent had historically either been indifferent to raptors or downright hostile to them. Into the early 1900s, bounties were placed on raptor species that were considered injurious to agriculture. Pennsylvania’s “Scalp Act of 1885” paid out bounties of 50 cents on 180,000 birds of prey over two years. The conservationists of the time saw bird-eating hawks and falcons as enemies to nature. Even young John Muir copped to proudly shooting a “chicken hawk” in his autobiography.

My first-hand experience of the human violence to raptors was brought into sharp clarity every day I worked at the raptor center. There were still personal and generational prejudices to overcome. It wasn’t long ago that even one chicken devoured by wildlife on a small family farm was a hardship. A hawk killing multiple livestock when times were lean put your entire family in danger. So, even as the general stores and homesteading gave way to grocery stores and shopping trips, the hostility remained passed down. This didn’t make it okay, but it also didn’t necessarily mean that these people were cruel. It more likely meant that they thought nature was cruel and held stronger values in protecting their families and community, however ill-informed.  

In these unnervingly divided times, I have felt a new rising rumble at the wildlife-human interface where the hawks thrive. I think we are all feeling an unease about our continued ability to care for ourselves and our families. As the price of food rises and we worry about darker years to come, many folks have started vegetable gardening and raising flocks of chickens. And while our ability to eat doesn’t hinge on these endeavors (yet), we have something else that wasn’t present during the last wave of raptor persecution. We love our poultry like pets and for some even as family. Once again the value of fiercely protecting what we love may outcompete our values for abiding by the law or protecting the natural world.

Juvenile Cooper’s hawk in Banning, CA 2022

In February, a paper in The Journal of Raptor Research examined the causes of death in Cooper’s hawks. Over 11 years, people intentionally killed eight female Cooper’s hawk in a study that included 158 tagged raptors in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Five of these birds wearing trackable tags had been shot and three were bludgeoned to death.  

“I, like many others, had been falsely thinking that the days of rampant hawk shooting the U.S were behind us, but we are learning that is not the case,” Brian Millsap, one of the authors and the National Raptor Coordinator of the USFS Migratory Bird Program said.

Me too, Brian. Me too. (Full disclosure, Brian is a falconer and one I admire a great deal.)

I think about Phoenix, the blank-eyed, one-winged, red-shouldered hawk that started my journey and the cognitive dissonance rattles me. Shooting hawks horrifies me, but if I thought I had to shoot a hawk to keep my family fed, protect my livelihood, or save a dearest pet, would I? Maybe these people aren’t anti hawks, but instead are pro family. Either way, until we care about each other, the animals don’t have a chance.

There’s an answer in this conundrum somewhere, but it can only be found when we ask others about their experiences. I don’t have to agree with people shooting hawks, but I can be curious why they feel they need to. They don’t have to love hawks, but they can be curious why I think they need to be protected. Yeah, some people are just no damn good, but it’s more likely that we are going to discover that we share the same value of protecting the people and creatures we love. It’s just that my version of protecting them is working to leave them with healthy ecosystems and endless adventures in nature. Maybe there’s a way to support both our needs without the other having to give too much up.

Maybe there are similar values and answers in all of our passionate disagreements.

And as for my dismissiveness of red-shouldered hawks? I think it’s time for me to get curious about them as well. I think I’ll start with investigating why they feel the need to narrate every waking moment. Maybe someone who loves red-shouldered hawks can give me an answer. Preferably a short one.