Some of us do have room to gripe. Below is an email sent to NAFA director David Wadsworth. He asked me to cite specifics. I did. I imagine he didn't like my response to him or my reasons for leaving NAFA. He never responded back to me. My E-mail to Mr. Wadsworth will hopefully give some perspective.
I wish all NAFA members would read my letter to Mr. Wadsworth. I wonder how many people on here will actually read this.
I'm not griping. I'm simply providing this information. I headed NAFA's Eagle Committee for over 10 years. I was a major player. We have eagles now. I always thought of myself as a falconer's falconer. I guess some of NAFA's new leadership thinks differently.
In any event, I provide this for your review.
ATB,
Dan McCarron
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sunday, January 10, 2009
Hello Mr. Wadsworth:
Ok, fair enough. You asked. As per Mr. Hunley's and your request, please allow me to give a few specific reasons as to why I won't be renewing my NAFA membership.
To bring you up to speed: There was a bit of a problem last spring when several out of state eagle falconers came to Wyoming to trap passage eagles for falconry in the only falconry eagle trapping, depredation area in the United States. Using steel leg hold traps and baiting animal carcasses, these eagle trappers set out to trap eagles for falconry purposes in the Red Desert of southwest Wyoming.
One haggard, male Golden Eagle was caught in one of these traps and was found starved to death a couple of weeks after everyone went home. It was discovered near a rig by an oil field worker and reported to the Wyoming Game and Fish Dept. I was asked by Wyoming Game and Fish to come in and identify, sex, and age the eagle. I had the dead eagle with its leg still in the trap in my hands. One live, haggard Bald Eagle was also discovered earlier in one of these traps, but was released by a Wyoming Game Warden. In both
circumstances, the two traps that caught the two eagles were identical. They were eagle falconers' traps because I have seen the traps before in the field. The traps had light chain
drags attached to them and the eagles had drifted away from the trap sites after being caught. To me, this meant that the traps just weren't being supervised and watched closely. No one probably knew the two eagles had even been caught. The trapping sites were just disasters waiting to happen. In addition several ravens had been caught and killed in these jaw traps with their legs crushed. These non-target corvids were simply discarded along the road next to the trapping sites. At least one of the trappers was asked to leave Wyoming by the wildlife official in charge. Not all of the traps were accounted
for when the co-op participants left the area and many of the trappers were not
getting along very well.
After working so long to set up the harvest of passage Golden Eagles in Wyoming, I was concerned when the eagle trapping co-ops were formed, nearly ten years ago. What's an eagle trapping co-op? It's a group of people from around the country who put a few hundred dollars into a pot and agree to gather once a year in Wyoming to help each other trap an eagle for everyone in the group with a license. Everyone shares traps. I imagine,(not sure, I've never been involved with eagle trapping co-ops) many of these people have never laid eyes on each other before coming to these trapping gatherings, which is another formula for disaster.
Few falconers pursue their falconry activities alone. I'm no exception. Daryl Peterson, Jack Stoddart, a few others and I discussed our concerns before the news of the trapping scandal in the spring of 2008 broke. I knew of problems with the co-ops in 2006 and 2007, but I had no way of working with the NAFA eagle committee. Essentially the NAFA Eagle committee is a liaison between the eagle club (IEAA) and the NAFA president, so both organizations condoned the co-ops, jaw traps, and not monitoring the traps prior to the scandal in 2008. It is my understanding NAFA has an eagle committee but they just report to the NAFA president and do not report to the NAFA board or the membership.
When the Wyoming Game and Fish Department became aware of the haggard bald eagle, the dead Golden Eagle that starved to death in one of the jaw traps, and the dead corvids with broken legs near a couple to trapping sets in the spring of 2008, NAFA did not step up to work out the issues. The co-ops and the IEAA defended the use of jaw traps. The fact is, at different times, the two co-ops had about a hundred traps spread out across an area fifty miles wide. They would check the traps, take the eagles back to a central hotel and distribute them to those who were in attendance. Few of these folks ever met one another prior to arriving in Wyoming. In my view the co-ops worked as schools for trapping eagles. Anyone with a federal permit could pay a fee to learn how to trap with jaw traps and obtain an eagle. I thought the NAFA board was against falconry schools.
Jack Stoddart volunteered to fill an opening on the NAFA eagle committee and the current NAFA president essentially ignored his request. Stoddart was associated with several Golden Eagle surveys and studies dating back to 1965. Working on projects trapping Golden Eagles in the mid 1970's, together with his hawking experience with Golden Eagles overshadows all the other members of the NAFA eagle committee put together.
If any NAFA committee is needed why should that committee only report to the NAFA president?
Eagle harvest for falconry in the U S has been most likely shutdown because of the behaviors of a few individuals with eagle falconry permits. This happened not because of a dysfunctional bureaucrat or any group or individual that was against falconry. It was not because of DDT, or a decline in eagle populations. Falconers, themselves, have probably caused the closure of the only designated eagle depredation area (for falconry) in the United States. Yet NAFA has not responded to any part of this event. NAFA has sat back and waited. They allowed the IEAA and the trapping coops to handle eagles for falconry on NAFAʼs behalf. Officially, NAFA supports jaw traps for trapping eagles.
Is NAFA functional? That is the question. From my view, sitting here at home in Wyoming, looking at my eagle fully understanding the history of how much it took for us to get here, it is clear NAFA dropped another ball. Just because the NAFA board was too busy fighting among themselves and focused on agenda items that turned the boardʼs protocols upside down, is no excuse.
Since a few inept eagle trappers can shutdown eagle trapping on a national level and NAFA has not even made a statement about the matter to their members, I conclude NAFA is not viable. It is clearly in decline.
Have you read the December 2008 Hawk Chalk? Have you studied the 2008 NAFA agendas on the NAFA website? When I joined in 1975, NAFA was a service organization committed to working to make falconry a legal field sport, providing a network for falconers to connect with one another and the goal was to have as many permitted falconers living in Canada and the US belong to NAFA as possible. At some point, after Alan Beske resigned from his NAFA position, NAFAʼs focus shifted. During 2008, the words raptor and falconry appeared in
few of the board's agenda items. The NAFA board was focused on the conflicts within the board. Granted, falconry is now legal to varying degrees in the majority of the states and provinces. It is also clear, however, that the NAFA board is no longer focused on gaining membership. It is my understanding that one NAFA director made the comment that he didn't care if people quit NAFA and started their own organization. The changes in the NAFA directory indicate the board would prefer to hinder the ability of falconers from around the country to connect with one another.
It has been my observation that new NAFA directors only focus on issues they have been coached on prior to becoming a NAFA director. They are not students of falconry. They are not informed as to NAFA's history or the history of the laws that manage recreation of falconry state to state. So someone has to feed the new NAFA directors the information. The problem with that is they are fed information that is hearsay and much of the information is often inaccurate or heavily filtered. Do the NAFA officers think that Wyoming magically decided to fight with the feds to allow falconers to come to Wyoming to trap their own eagles? Do they assume NAFA did the work? Does the NAFA administration think
that it is a mere coincidence that the only area in the United States to trap an
eagle out of the wild for falconry purposes is in my backyard?
Sadly, most long wingers who hawk in eagle country hate Golden Eagles. Most U.S. falconers don't care about Golden Eagles and most of the people who have thought about obtaining a Golden Eagle are pet keepers. Many permit holders do not live in an area where eagles can be flown effectively and the majority of the eagles taken in Wyoming have not taken game. Stoddart is a founding NAFA kid and a charter member of NAFA. If anyone studies Golden Eagle research, they should be able to find his name on some of that research. He has never had a rehab permit, but he had a Golden Eagle on his falconry permit longer than any other falconer in the US. And he has been my friend for over 25 years. How could the NAFA president ignore Stoddart? Doesn't NAFA want competent
people serving on its special committees? Why did Darryl Perkins remove me as the NAFA Eagle Committee Chairman after working so hard to get eagles for American falconers? Was it because the real work was done? Why did Perkins remove me as Chairman after getting Wyoming open to keep eagles for falconry and then open to trap eagles for residents and nonresidents in Wyoming? Was appointing a different Chairman from another state more appropriate? These are hard questions and they all point to politics at the expense of other people. Do the last two NAFA presidents assume the head of the NAFA Eagle Committee has taken more game with Golden Eagles than I have or Stoddart has? Does the board assume the chairman of the NAFA Eagle Committee has trapped more eagles than I have or Stoddart has?
Falconry is a hunting sport. I'm a hunter. When I opened up eagle trapping in Wyoming my friends (including Frank Bond) and I knew many of the eagles would be acquired by pet keepers and folks would assume Golden Eagles were like big Harris' Hawks or big redtails. They're not. On a positive note, a few have done well with their eagles taken in Wyoming. I do not think all of the people associated with the co-ops are inept. As eagle trappers, they took the easiest route and somehow ignored the other traditional methods available. They were sold an opportunity to acquire an eagle for a fee. A small group of people
spread a hundred traps across a fifty mile area and left the jaw traps unattended. Eagles were injured. At least one died. They trapped Bald Eagles as well. Ravens and a few other raptors also died. And they lost several traps that they could not account for.
This is 2009 and it appears the harvest of depredating eagles in Wyoming for falconry will be shut down this spring and a good deal of work will have to be done to reopen trapping at a later date. It depends on USDA/Wildlife Services in Wyoming.
Now some of NAFA's administration and directors think I'm upset, or angry, or out of control. Let me put it all into perspective for you. At somepoint, a peregrine trapping co-op may leave a couple of drowned peregrines attached to pigeon harnesses on a beach in Texas. Maybe then you folks will get a rough idea how I feel. The NAFA board has to make an assessment of these eagle trapping co-ops and the current NAFA Eagle committee. All of this stuff went on under NAFA's nose and NAFA did absolutely nothing but stick its head in the sand. How many committees does NAFA have? Perhaps, if NAFAʼs Eagle committee had reported to the NAFA board some of these problems would have been addressed.
Wyoming is the patron saint of nonresident harvest of raptors for falconry purposes in the United States. Nonresidents have been able to trap passage gyrs, and eyass and passage goshawks, Ferruginous hawks, Merlins, Prairie Falcons, and other raptor species in Wyoming for over 40 years with absolutely no impact on the raptor resource whatsoever. Wyoming also allows the taking of passage golden eagles to properly licensed falconers. Ask Don Hunley why Alaska hasn't opened up a nonresident raptor harvest. Talk to the falconers that have lived in Montana for a long time and ask them what Ralph Rogers has been
doing in Montana to help establish a nonresident take.
Thank you for prompting me to provide you with specific examples. You make a good point. As you mentioned Mr. Wadsworth, if you interact over the internet, you run the great risk of having your personal e-mails becoming public. Please feel free to distribute this e-mail as you see fit. Just make certain the current NAFA administration doesn't filter the information.
What I have shared with you are just some of the many reasons I'm not going to renew my NAFA membership. I will not debate any of this information either. I'm not handing every bit of information to you on a silver platter. The new NAFA board should do their own research on what has transpired. You do not have to take my word on any of this. All of this information is verifiable. You can gather your own information from multiple sources, as I have. Just for fun, why don't you compare the proposed federal falconry regulations, to NAFAʼs formal response to them, to the final federal falconry regulations. Then you decide how much impact NAFA formally had on the federal regulations. I'm tired of trying to wake NAFA up. I don't belong to NAFA any longer. Iʼm going hawking.
Respectfully,
Dan McCarron
Rock Springs, Wyoming
