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Delisting & Taking Peregrines from the Wild

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carly:
I wondered about that too especially in relation to Ontario.  We had a dismal year last year here with multiple nest failures and falcons not nesting at all.  Lack of males is a huge problem here, it's not just something I noticed - everyone involved in the PF programs noted it as we have a few sites where there have been females for 2 years but no males have shown up at all - or one male trying to service 2 nests and both failed.

Also I read the MNR reports and they admit that in central Ontario the PF has not repopulated at all - zero, nada in an area that used to at one time have many, many nests so I'm perplexed by it all.  12 nest sites in Toronto, with only 5 that produced young is not in my mind a success story.  I know you can't determine a grade based on one bad year but when I read the reports in some of the US states, they are leaps and bounds ahead of us in terms of population success rates.

I wonder what the criteria goal was that determined the listing.

The Peregrine Chick:
The question is, can a species that was virtually extinct thirty years ago and which was saved only through captive-breeding and countless hours of monitoring/rescues/releases by recovery projects in virtually every state and province in Canada and US can be considered endangered one day and with the stroke of a pen suddenly not be at risk at all.  Since it removes national protections/oversight and the need/requirement for same, will we find out there is a population decline when it suddenly is dipping toward local extirpation again and then it becomes endangered again?  What's the point of having intermediate at risk categories then?

As for captures from the wild - not as easy as one might think, at least by ethical falconers.  Can't touch them in the nest as that violates migratory bird act (international) and probably most states/provinces have protections for nestsites.  So have to catch them on the wing ... unless you know what you are doing, not easy to do, especially not easy to do and not injure the bird - and injuring the bird would violate your permit - and yes, you have to be licenced/permitted to be a falconer/own falcons (as I recall). 

I'm not sure about wild sourcing of peregrines for falconry (or heck, any other raptor species), when there are captive-bred birds which can be purchased as chicks which can make it much easier to acclimate to human companionship (and yes, to peregrines, we are their companion animals).  An adult or subadult peregrine can be attitudinal and uncooperative all of its life - and its not like they don't take off on their "owners", they do all the time, all falconry birds can potentially, it just depends on the individual birds' relationship with their human.  I will say that I have only rarely met a falconer that wasn't devoted to their birds and who treat them with the utmost of respect and adoration.

allikat:
So in other words....peregrines, in the us or all the above ?, should still be in the downlist category?

The Peregrine Chick:
As I recall the same concerns came up when the US government decided to de-list rather than down-list the peregrine nationally.


For those who aren't sure, this is the (perhaps) oversimplified difference between the two ...
delist - remove at-risk status entirely - does not require much of anything unless the states include them on their at-risk lists - happend in the US
downlist - downgrade from endangered to threatened - requires continued monitoring etc at national and state levels - this is what happened in Canada

carly:
 I just hate reading these articles and every time I check my google alerts on falcons I seem to see more of them these days as every state seems to be allowing this.

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