The History Of Falconry
Falconry is a sport that involves the use of trained birds of prey to hunt game for humans.
It is believed that falconry was well established in the Middle and Far East by 2000 BC despite the earliest evidence only coming from the era around the reign of Sargon II (722-705 BC).
The Romans probably learnt falconry from the Greeks although the practice does not appear to have been widespread and there are references to Caesar using falcons to kill carrier pigeons. Falconry was probably introduced to Europe in about 400 AD when the Huns and Alans invaded from the East.
More recently falconry has become more popular particularly as a sport of kings. It was reputedly the favourite sport of every King of England from Alfred the Great to George III except for James I who spent much of his time training cormorants and ospreys to catch fish.
A lot has been written about King John’s passion for crane hawking and he often brought hunting parties to the Test Valley to fly falcons at herons. The herons were ringed before they were re-released and information about their numbers and locations are documented in the Domesday Book.
In the Middle Ages it was not just the rich who hunted with hawks. Labourers used hawks to hunt for food, often illegally and King John who wanted to improve the rewards of his own personal hunting banned people taking all feathered game from the Royal Forests which at the time covered vast areas of the British countryside.
The law provided that a hundred paupers should be fed with the proceeds of each Royal hunt but despite this if it had been enforced effectively it would still have caused much suffering and hardship.
During the Middle Ages a social custom evolved in falconry known today as the Laws of Ownership. Birds of prey were allocated a rank and a man could not hawk with a bird that had a higher rank than him. The hierarchy seems to have evolved around the cost of the bird and it is not known how strictly it was adhered to. The original list was documented in the 15th Century ‘Boke of St Albans’ on hawking, hunting and cote-armour as follows:
Emperor – The Eagle, Vulture, and Merloun
King – The Ger Falcon and the Tercel of the Ger Falcon
Prince: The Falcon Gentle and the Tercel Gentle
Duke: The Falcon of the Loch
Earl: The Falcon Peregrine
Baron: The Bustard
Knight: The Sacre and the Sacret
Esquire: The Lanere and the Laneret
Lady: The Marlyon
Young Man: The Hobby
Yeoman: The Goshawk
Poor Man: The Tiercel
Priest: The Sparrowhawk
Holy Water Clerk: The Musket
Knave or Servant: The Kestrel
Falconers have traditionally conserved raptors in the wild as a sustainable source of hunting birds. In 501 in burgundy anyone stealing a hawk was heavily fined, or if unable to pay, six ounces of flesh was cut from his chest and fed to the hawk. In Britain during the reign of Henry the 3rd anyone stealing a hawk from a nest was imprisoned for a year and a day.
If he stole another person’s hawk he was executed. It was common to release birds back to the wild at the end of the season. Goshawks and Sparrowhawks were often released into a local wood to breed birds for the next season. So falconry right from the start grew up with the basic premise that wildlife is a renewable resource sustainable indefinitely if managed correctly.
Then as firearms became widespread, people could kill animals quickly and easily , so falconry fell from favour. Raptors without a role in falconry, were now seen as competitors for game and therefore Vermin. Massive campaigns for the destruction of raptors began migrating raptors were shot for sport , and still are to this day in Malta. The Victorian era was a century of shame for raptors in Britain with gamekeepers and exploitation by egg collectors.
Fortunately for the Bird of Prey 2 world Wars came along and put an end to game shooting With the reduction of revenue from the British Empire big shooting estates went into decline and most of the keepers went to the front never to return. Raptors had a respite and recovery period.But for some it was too late. The Goshawk had been exterminated, as had the White Tailed Sea Eagle and Osprey. The Red Kite was hanging on by a thread in Wales, and the Buzzard and Golden Eagle could only be found in a few places devoid of gamekeepers.
After the war the country needed to sustain itself and Farmers returned to the land. Chemicals were seen as a way of improving productivity. DDT was seen as the wonder chemical in eradicating crop pests.
We now know the folly of using such pesticides and their effect on the food chain. Raptors were once again in big trouble and as biological indicators, became the flagship species for clean–up campaigns. Suddenly they were an endangered national heritage. Anything which might threaten them was stamped on hard, and Falconers overnight became the Bad Guys.
A few simple facts were overlooked. Falconers never have, in any country at any period in time, endangered any population of raptors or any other species. The same cannot be said for agriculture, pesticides, shooting, or even the domestic cat all of which have been responsible for exterminating completed species.
In fact falconers with millennia of experience and hands on contact have pioneered their welfare and breeding in the wild and in captivity. The Falconer does not want to kill raptors, he tends his few birds alive and thus is easily detected and targeted. The shooter who kills or poisons raptors is virtually undetectable, as is the farmer using pesticides. Nowadays with raptors biologist all over the globe. Wherever there is hands on work to be done you will find that the biologist either has a falconry background, or is using techniques developed by someone that has.