Quote Originally Posted by Joby View Post
Karen, any idea of adding merlins to the list? We just added them here and I know you had a depredation eyass take up there on merlins this past spring.
As long as they're state listed, it's probably not going to get added to the list for take in the regular seasons. As long as they find piping plovers tasty, we'll have little problem getting the more conservative non-falconry stakeholders on this issue to buy into the idea of depredation take.

How unusual is this situation? I discussed the possibility of merlins older than 1 year being taken as part of this depredation with some of the higher ups in USFWS, and they were willing to waive that restriction for our depredation take into falconry possession if it helped us with our plover goals and avoiding lethal take of raptors (we got into the general subject of depredation take of random raptors into falconry and the potential value of including additional latitude at the federal level - don't know if it'll come to anything, but the idea is bouncing around the right heads now).

Karen