I contacted him and he said that he might able to supply the bird of prey. However, he admit that it is difficult to get bird of prey export permit.

I am waiting for the pricelist from him. Hopefully the price is affordable and he is not just a ‘scam’… it is sad to be cheated

Here is the article:

By Sasha Goldstein and Heidi Hanse

POLSON – Alligators, eagles and hawks. Oh my.

At the South Shore Veterinary Pet Fair last Saturday, animals, native to Polson and from elsewhere, hung out for the public to ask questions about and touch.

“It was really fun, a good time,” Carlos Rodriquez, an employee at South Shore, said.

He said the weather wasn’t ideal and many vendors canceled due to the rain. This year there wasn’t a dog training course, among other things.

“There’s that momentary ‘oh no, I’ll never do this again’ reaction [after the vendors canceled],” he said. “The show must go on. However, the presenters rose to the occasion.”

People came from as far away as Kalispell and from as close as the Polson Senior Center to satisfy their curious nature.

“For a lot of the visitors, it was good for them to see those different animals,” Rodriquez said. “Here in Polson, it’s a novelty.”

The whole point of the Pet Fair was to expose people to new things that they wouldn’t normally come into contact with for the greater cause of education.

“I like to see people exposed to animals one-on-one,” he said. “It helps when a kid sees the look on the animals’ faces. He might not pull the trigger on a .22 when his friends are telling him to shoot an eagle or hawk.”

Rodriquez had his own red-tailed hawk and golden eagle there for people to be exposed to. Rodriguez examined a pellet the eagle spit up, showing attendees what the bird had eaten the previous days as part of his presentation. The magnificent, large bird had hit a power line, Rodriguez said, and will never fly again.

“The choices were three: to euthanize her, tame her or give it to a zoo,” he said.

His two-year-old golden eagle, which he just learned can live to 50 or 60 years old, is trained to be an educational bird and was calm when approached by some of the fair-goers.

“If she is going to be an educational bird, she is going to have to get used to all of it,” he said. “It’s an everyday thing for me to hold an eagle, but that isn’t the case for others.”

His red-tailed hawk, on the other hand, has been healing up at his home in Polson, so this fair was a coming-out party of sorts.

“It was her first time to be presented to a group of people,” he said.

When Rodriquez is going to present his birds, he takes into account how the birds are acting the day of a presentation.

“There’s days when one of my birds just isn’t in the mood,” he said. “Then it’s not fun for the bird, the people or myself.”

Visitors were also able to check out a salt-water aquarium with many types of fish and coral.

In the future, Rodriquez would like to see the fair expand to include more games and activities for children.

“Kids have only a certain length of an attention span,” he said. “I would like it to be more of a fair with a lot of different things.”

The day after, Rodriquez was thinking of how he was going to top an alligator for next year’s fair.

“An elephant,” he said. “We might need to start looking for one.”

Source: Leadadvertiser.com

YAKIMA, Wash., July 13 (UPI) — Two Washington state men pleaded guilty to killing bald and golden eagles and selling their parts in violation of federal law, U.S. prosecutors said.

Alfred L. Hawk Jr. and William R. Wahsise, both 23-year-old Yakama tribe members from White Swan, Wash., could face prison terms and hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines when they’re sentenced in October, federal prosecutors said.

Tribal members with permits are allowed to have eagle feathers, which some Native Americans view as sacred and use in dances and tribal ceremonies, but not kill eagles or buy or sell their parts.

In March 2009, after two years’ investigation, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agents raided the two men’s homes, prosecutors said. Agents seized 21 golden eagle tails, 30 golden eagle wings, 31 bald eagle tails and two bald eagle wings from Hawk’s home and a handful of golden eagle tails, 22 golden eagle wings and feathers from golden eagles and bald eagles at Wahsise’s home.

Hawk pleaded guilty to three felony charges and one misdemeanor, Wahsise to one felony and one misdemeanor.

Hawk and Wahsise used corpses of captured wild horses as bait to attract the bald and golden eagles they killed, prosecutors said.

“The indiscriminate slaughter of these protected birds is alarming,” James A. McDevitt, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Washington, said in a statement. “The black market sale of eagle parts must be stopped at its source.”

upi.com >

Bald eagle lives the high life

WOTAN the American Bald Eagle has been living the high life.

The bird, a star attraction at the Cotswold Falconry Centre at Batsford, near Moreton, spent a couple of nights at a luxury hotel near Bristol last week after soaring too high during a display.

Head falconer Mike Hope said the 10-year-old eagle, was “thermalling” and just went up, up and away until he was a tiny speck in the distance.

Wotan eventually came down to earth 45 miles away at the Berwick Lodge Hotel, Bristol, where guests were amazed to see him land in the hotel’s woodland grounds.

When India, the 10-year-old daughter of hotel owner Sarah Arikan, went to take some photos of the bird of prey, he tried to land on her arm, terrifying the girl and scratching her arm.

Eventually, after trying to get help from the RSPB, hotel staff managed to contact local bird trainer Lloyd Buck, who was able to lure Wotan down with some of the hotel’s finest lamb steak before securing him.

It was then that Wotan, who was ringed, was identified as belonging to the Cotswold Falconry Centre and Mike was contacted. He went to get his bird back last Tuesday.

“You are always relieved when they come back. The last time he went down that way was four years ago when he was scared off by military helicopters,” said Mike. “He ended up at the ski slope at Gloucester.”

Wotan, who was born at Hanover Zoo and arrived at the falconry centre eight years ago, has a six foot wingspan. There are about a dozen captive bred bald eagles in the UK.

The day after his latest adventure, Wotan was back at work visiting children at Blockley Primary School.

(source: www.cotswoldjournal.co.uk )

The gyrfalcon spotted on the Isle of Lewis since late April has a wingspan of more than 6 feet.

“Usually, they hang around in the Arctic Circle and move south a little in winter, but very rarely get to the U.K.,” said Royal Society for the Protection of Birds conservation officer Martin Scott.

He said the ash also appears to have kept a large number of geese in the Outer Hebrides from being able to migrate to the Arctic.

The RSBP said the gyrfalcon could actually be hunting the newly arrived geese.

Source: Earthweek.com

Jeffrey Lendrum was charged with climbing a mountain in south Wales to steal peregrine falcon eggs from their nest at Solihull Magistrates’ Court.

West Midlands Police said it is the first case of its kind for 20 years.

The 48-year-old, who has dual Zimbabwean and Irish nationality, was said to have the eggs strapped to his body to keep them warm.

He was charged with four offences involving the taking of the eggs from a peak in the Rhondda and hiding them to evade export restrictions.

He was also charged with the possession of climbing gear, an incubator and other equipment to take and keep wild bird eggs.

Twelve of the 14 eggs are believed to be alive.

Officers said they kept them safe by nesting them on their office computers and turning them regularly until wildlife rescue centre staff arrived to collect them. It is hoped they will eventually be returned to the wild once they are hatched.

Lendrum was remanded in custody on May 5 and he is due to appear at Warwick Crown Court later this month.

Source : Birmingham mail news

The Department of Environmental Conservation has conducted annual surveys since 1979. The highest winter count was in 2008, with 573 bald eagles spotted. DEC’s preliminary results for 2010 indicate that sightings may exceed that number.

In 1975, The state was able to document only one, unproductive pair of bald eagles after years of habitat loss, pesticide contamination and hunting.

In 2009, 173 breeding pairs raised 223 young. Eagles from Canada winter in New York, and during a Jan. 2010 survey, 459 were spotted, including 101 along the St. Lawrence River and 277 in the Hudson River and Delaware River basins.
The chronicle news>

With this modification, the bow perch will be suitable in door and outdoor and when located outdoor, it can be fixed to the ground so the bird wont able to drag the bow perch away.

Here is the photo.

Hole in the horizontal bar of the bow perch

additional tool to fixed it to the ground

This is how it look like when fixed to the ground

I have made the order and now waiting for the CITES and all the necessary document. Hopefully everthing is fine and I can get a good quality bird soonest…

Here is some information about african hawk eagle in wiki.

The African Hawk Eagle (Aquila spilogastra) is a large bird of prey. Like all eagles, it belongs to the family Accipitridae.

The African Hawk Eagle breeds in tropical Sub-Saharan Africa. It is a bird of wooded hills, building a stick nest about 3 feet (almost 1 meter) in diameter in the fork of a large tree. The clutch is generally one or two eggs.

This is a small to medium-sized eagle at about 55–65 cm in length. The upper parts are blackish. Its underparts are white heavily streaked with black. The underwing flight feathers are white with a black trailing edge. The underwing coverts are mostly black with white spots.

Sexes are similar, but young birds are brown above and rufous coloration replaces the black underparts of the adult.

The African Hawk Eagle hunts small mammals, reptiles, and birds up to the size of a francolin. The call is a shrill kluu-kluu-kluu.

Once I got my African Hawk Eagle… the fun will start again… I will try to post the update about the training and hunting…

Here is some photo of the eagle…