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UPDATED March 2011 |
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A number
of different scenarios were presented in the survey. It began with the option
of dividing all permits equally among the states which allow the trapping of
peregrines. There was another that would place all the permits in a national passage
peregrine take lottery. Another
defined a ratio system whereby the permits are allotted to states based on
the number of falconers living in each state. There was also a “one
permit per state” option with all additional permits going into a
national random draw. In addition to these, there were a few other not-so-promising
scenarios. The problem with this
survey was obvious: it failed to ask the states if they wanted to proceed with
the alternative of asking for an increase in take, the 5% take which is the
simplest solution that would address all the problems, complaints, and future
concerns. More issues
with the current system will surface as additional states come on-line. For example,
over the first two years of the passage peregrine take, thirty-six permits
were divided among three flyway councils – In late
2007 and early 2008 we considered and made comments to the USFWS regarding
the Draft Environmental Assessment (DEA) and the six different alternatives
for passage peregrine take. Your officers considered the options, spoke with
a lot of others including NAFA, but most importantly we listened to our
membership. We as a community, the falconry community, elected to go with
Alternative #6 which allowed the take of passage peregrines between the dates
of Sep. 20 and Oct. 20 anywhere in the It is
time for the falconry community as a whole to take the time and consider the
bigger picture when it comes to passage peregrine take. The short take season was designed to allow
a tundra take and to limit impacting our resident anatum
populations. As long as the falconry
community continues to request permits for states that have a limited ability
at filling those permits, the more difficult it will be for falconers to gain
the 5% take promised in the DEA. It is because we, as a community, are
failing to fill all the allotted permits thus we are limiting ourselves and
lessening the likelihood of the FWS increasing the passage peregrine take allotment. It is time we as a community consider the
effect of only filling 50% of our permits. |
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I
don’t think many of us know for sure what the future holds for
falconers, including the passage peregrine take for the 2011 take
season. NAFA has reached out to the state
cubs and is trying to accomplish the impossible. Recently NAFA asked states to send letters
to the Atlantic Flyway Council, before their winter meeting, requesting an
increase to allowable take from the current 1% to 5%. This is a good start and is something to
build on. As I’ve always said, you don’t know until you ask. Personally I have heard from many of the less optimistic falconers and their opinions that we will never see a 5% take of passage peregrines. To those out there that believe this to be true, I’m happy to say they were also some of the same folks who also said we would never be able to trap peregrines again. Falconers should continue to work together for the bigger, overall, and far reaching picture; a 5% take – by the USFWS own words is justifiable and scientifically allowable. To quote: “...our explicit management goal is to allow a harvest of up to 5% of minimum annual production of Northern peregrines”. The hard part is for falconers to step back and be honest with themselves and realize that the likelihood of their successfully trapping a peregrine falcon outside of the coastal states is remote at best. For those falconers who believe the best option is to further divide the thirty-six permits we are being awarded each season, please realize we may never attain the 5% take that way, and my less than optimistic friends out there may in fact be right after all. _________________________________ NEWS UPDATES Membership Dues Lost Bird Alert Knowledgebase Calendar Archives As always, we are always open to suggestions on new features for the site. If you have an idea, please submit it to the webmaster at webmaster@texashawking.org and we’ll see what we can do.
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