The goshawk in this thread turned out to be the best imprint we've had by far. His early success and willingness to kill a young age continued through his first season. He never hesitated on ducks or rabbits from day one. He was hunted anywhere between 715 and 750g with little to no aggression or recall issues. He never needed much weight reduction to get the desired reponse. He was a very easy hawk to enter. Unfortunately during the first molt he died overnight for some unknown reason. We shipped him overnight to get a necropsy but they found no cause of death. They ruled out WNV, Asper, heat exhustion, starvation, New Castle's, parasites, poisoning, etc... We have no idea why he died.

As for the next male imprint, we raised it the same way but he was much more difficult than this bird but more typical of the other imprints. He needed significant weight reduction to get the behavior under control and he doesn't have the prey drive that this one did at a young age and at a heavy weight.