Quote Originally Posted by sharptail View Post
Policies within NAFA are what has caused past members to break away and form a new club. Just a couple of the issues are: NAFA's current policy that Falconer's birds are somehow, owned by the governments, a complete myth, exposed by the AFC and NAFA asserting along with USFWS that hybrid raptors are native, naturally occuring in N. America, and therefore under the MBTA, just because the FWS says it is so, in contradiction to court cases to the contrary. With issues like these, the question beggs, is NAFA sided with the Falconers or those groups that are anti-falconry?
AFC wants to eliminate all forms of regulation so that the system in the US is exactly like that of the UK. With no regulation on who can own a raptor, the take of wild raptors will be lost. This is not a surprising mentality for the AFC given the past and present leadership of the AFC, i.e., they make their livings off of breeding raptors. Same issue with hybrids, remove restrictions on hybrids that contain a fraction of native raptor, and suddenly the market for who can buy such hybrids increases beyond licensed falconers. I find the AFC's stance on these issues ironic given that they used to call themselves the WRTC, or Wild Raptor Take Conservancy.