Peregrine Shot
My approach to working with Peregrines has always been to try and do what is best for the birds but still help people affected by the falcons’ presence. I strive to walk the middle of road and see both sides of a situation.
It is understandable that someone may not want a Peregrine family living on their balcony. It also understandable the need to preserve each Peregrine eyrie no matter where it is. If I can find a way to resolve an individuals’ concerns yet ensure that in the long run the Peregrines can continue to breed, then I’ve done my work right.
Recently something happened where I can’t see the other side of the story. In other words, I don't find any justification for what occurred. Last week an injured Peregrine Falcon was brought to Willowbrook Wildlife Center for treatment. Nothing unusual in that as wild animals become injured all the time. Old age or inexperience can take a bird. And as hard as it is to see territorial fights, it is actually a good sign that the Peregrine population is recovered enough to have individuals fighting over a ledge.
But when you lose a bird to indiscriminate shooting, the loss is both meaningless and personal.
Her name was Soara and she fledged from a nest in Fort Wayne, Indiana in 2013. Since last (2014) December, she had been hanging out in a neighborhood on the northwest side of Chicago. On March 3rd, Soara was found by a building engineer with an injured wing. He called the Chicago Bird Collision Monitors’ hotline and they brought the falcon to Willowbrook.
X-rays revealed that Soara had a severe compound fracture, a dislocated humerus, and a pellet lodged near that humerus in her right wing. She received immediate treatment and was scheduled for surgery. Due to the severity of the injury, Soara was not expected to be releasable but would ultimately end up being an education bird.
This is not the first time a Peregrine has been shot. Back in World War II, Peregrines were killed to prevent them from feeding on carrier pigeons that were used by troops to pass messages. Some states had problems during their Peregrine reintroduction process of having their release birds shot by pigeon fanciers concerned for their flocks. In the past decade, there has been an increase in the number of shootings of Peregrines. Over the past six years, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds has recounted at least 54 incidences of Peregrines being illegally killed in the UK. Numbers of shootings in the U.S has also risen.
Now we are starting to see it happen close to home.
In 2014, a $5000 reward was offered for information about the shooting of a Peregrine near West Allis, Wisconsin. Wisconsin lost 3 Peregrines last year to illegal shootings. One of those individuals lost had fledged from an Illinois nest. Last May, we our Waukegan female (Fran) died after a territorial fight. Upon examination she was shown to be full of avian heartworm which probably made her weak enough to lose the fight. But buried within the breast muscle mass was a pellet. Fran had lived for quite some time after being shot as a cyst had formed around the pellet.
This recent increase in Illegal shootings of Peregrines has me concerned. Bad enough someone intentionally harms a Peregrine, but what if a child gets injured because someone was shooting at the hawk on the building ledge.
Just because the Peregrine population is doing fine, we can’t shrug our shoulders and say “It happens”. We may never find out who shot Soara, (who ultimately died from her wounds), but we can remind the public that shooting Peregrines and other hawks is illegal. More importantly, please report to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, any abuse of wildlife that you may have knowledge about.
