Group shepherds young falcons from urban environment to life in Alberta wild

A team is helping baby peregrine falcons born on Edmonton rooftops survive in the wild. CTV News Edmonton's Amanda Anderson has the story.

A group of conservation specialists are helping young falcons born on Edmonton and area rooftops make the transition to living in the wild.

Members of the Alberta Peregrine Falcon Recovery Advisory Group, made up of experts from government, conservation groups and stakeholders, shepherd the peregrines born high above the city and region to a spot high above the Pembina River west of Edmonton near Entwistle, where they acclimate to life away from urban areas.

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Peregrines are expert hunters who feast on other birds. With large eyes and bright yellow feet armed with needle-sharp talons, they fly to great heights before diving on unsuspecting prey, sometimes reaching speeds greater than 320 kilometres per hour.

Their populations declined with the use of the pesticide DDT, which infiltrated the food chain and made their shells too weak to hatch. By the 1960s, the peregrine population had nearly disappeared from the continent.

But in 1972, DDT was banned, and conservationists began bringing the birds back from the brink. They came off Alberta’s endangered species list in 1999.

In 1970, just three known breeding pairs existed in the province. Today, there are 50 to 60 breeding pairs across Alberta.

“Remarkably, the bird has made a tremendous comeback in the last 30 years or so, and it is now considered not at risk,” Gordon Court, a provincial wildlife status biologist, told CTV News Edmonton on Thursday. “Nationally, it’s still on the books as a threatened species in Alberta.”

An outbreak of bird flu three years ago killed off about 30 per cent of adult peregrine falcons, said Court, adding it will take about four more years for the population to catch up.

In 2011, the team installed what’s known as a hack site high above the Pembina. The site is low tech, Court says, describing it as a place where they can feed the young falcons and keep them away from civilization until they’re ready to take to the skies.

When the falcons are old enough, the cage door is opened slightly, allowing them to come out, explore and take their first flight.

Court says leaving the falcons alone is critical.

“We have signs here saying ‘No trespassing;’ this is very important that we don’t disturb them before they take that first flight,” he said.

“The worst thing that can happen is they get frightened off the box and fly to the horizon, and we may never see them again, so it’s very critical that they’re not disturbed just as they’re learning to fly.”

Each year, the group collects all but one young bird from nests in Edmonton and nearby industrial sites and brings them away from buildings and traffic to the Pembina site, where it’s safer and from where 12 falcons were recently released.

“We know that, the males especially, will return to areas where they learn to fly, and that tends to get them coming back here,” Court said.

“If this cliff is occupied, they’ll go down the river and occupy a new one. We’ve been successful at repopulating the upper North Saskatchewan, the upper Red Deer, the Berland, the Nordegg, the Brazeau. There are peregrines back nesting within meters of where their ancestors nested in the 1960s and ’50s.”

Steve Schwartze leaves frozen quail for the falcons and monitors them every day from a nearby homeowner’s lookout, where he uses a spotting scope to read bands identifying them to know which ones are coming and going.

It’s work the falconer and breeder with Falcon Ecosystem Solutions says is gratifying.

“Peregrines nested here last in 1964, and we had a pair show up 50 years later,” Schwartze told CTV News Edmonton.

“Because of our efforts here, we had a wild pair of peregrines that were nesting in the valley. We see a lot of our young come back as one-, two- or three-year-old birds. That’s really rewarding”

With files from The Associated Press