New to the board and have a few questions about GHO. I have been reading up as much as I can about care and raiseing of GHO and wow, so much to read. Please forgive me if my question have been answered before in other threads, kinda up to my eyeballs with informaion and its still pileing up. I live in the sw section of the united states and am interested in raising GHO. There are so many that are killed or abandond in this section of the US and help from the local fish and wildlife is very frustrating when babys that are in danger are found. I was wondering what is the legal stance I would have if I chose to take one into my home for care, and possibly falconry? What kind of license would I have to obtain to do so. That is my most pressing question at the moment before I get in deeper. Any help on this subject would be very helpful. Thanks. Sentient
Post by birdguy888 on May 24, 2004 21:50:34 GMT -5
If you become a falconer, you cannot possess a GHO until you are a general class which is your third year. However, you can become a rehabilitator if there isn't already one in your immediate area and that requires that you have some medical knowledge, a licensed avian (must be avian certified) vet who is willing to do the work/meds for free (or you have to pay for it) and you'll have to have several mews for the different species since most cannot be housed together (i.e. cannot mix hawks/falcons.....owls/hawks.....nothing with eagles or ferruginous except their own species).
If you find an injured GHO, legally, assuming you don't have a general falconer's license or a rehabbers license, you can keep the bird only as long as it takes to transport it to either a rehab station or a vet. Far to many ppl find a GHO owlett on the ground and think that it is abandoned. It isn't. It's probably not far from it's nest and definitely not far from it's mother. The mother will feed that bird, and protect it as much as possible until it can fly back up to the nest. Most of the time it's best to ignore those "abandoned" babies. I understand your frustration. Most Fish and Wildlife agents know prescious little about raptors and they don't want to deal with them unless they have to. If i found an owlett, eyass or eaglet injured on the ground, i would call my agent and tell them what i found. I might volunteer to take the bird to the rehab ctr/vet. But i would make sure that s/he (the agent) KNEW what i was up to. Sometimes they interpret the laws with slightly less objectivity than they should use. Just be careful!
Post by What Timeing on May 25, 2004 18:38:10 GMT -5
What timing. Last night after I posted here I got a call from my girlfriend that there was a baby owl that was being attacked by the dogs on her mothers farm. She had chased away the dogs before they could injure it. She asked what she should do, capture it and take it to the local humane center. I told her to not touch it, make sure that the dogs were locked up and away from it because the adult owl isn't far away and is still caring for it and to keep an eye on it. Come morning I drove out to the farm to have a look around. The baby owl that from what I can tell is about 4 weeks old was still on the ground near where it was attacked under a willow tree. I checked for nests around the area but did not find anything. On the east side of the farm not far from the house is a small road that leads to the main highway. Larger trees are along that road so I checked there to see if any nests could be seen. There in the road was an dead adult owl that appeared to be hit by a car. I set up my laptop to do my work near a window where I could keep an eye on the baby owl and to see if an adult owl would come to feed it. After about 9 hours of watching it, no adult owl came to care for it and it did not move from its location much. I contacted the game warden at the sub station at lake Brownwood that is near my house and told the officer on the phone what my situation was. He told me that if after 8 hours it has not been attended to by its parents to recover the owl and contact his office. At 6:15 I decided to capture the baby olw and contacted the office again. At this point he tells me that they do not have the ability to house the owl and that I would have to contact a rehab center. I have just finished building a very large temp houseing for the owl and will be making calls tomorrow to find what to do next. If anyone is located in Texas and can help me with this situation please contact me. Gonna need some help here. Thanks.
Call 1-800-792-1112 this is the Austin headquarters and they can give you the names of rehabbers in your county so that you can get the bird to help. You can not keep the bird yourself unless you are a General level falconer or above. If you keep it and get caught you will never get a falconry permit.
I know of two places you can go immediatly although their are probably several smaller rehabs nearby. One of the biggest in the state is in San Antonio, called Last Chance Forever. The other is the one I work for in Dallas called On the Wing Again. If you are willing, I can meet you in Stephenville and pick it up tonight as I am able to transport the bird to the rehab center. I looked on the TPW rehab list and there aren't any Raptor rehabs in Brown county....Or any county nearby unless you want to drive to either San Angelo, San Antonio, Austin or Dallas. Here is the list of rehabbers and their counties. www.tpwd.state.tx.us/nature/research/rehab/main.htm
Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines "Give a man a fish, and you'll feed him for a day; give him a religion................ and he'll starve to death while praying for a fish."
Wilded, I'm not sure how the laws in Tx read. But, in Mo. you can help a bird of prey in need to get to the vet or a rehab ctr. But you can't keep it without the proper licensing. Sort of a hawk "Good Sumaritan" law . There isn't a time limit on that either. With the game agent person having full knowledge of the situation, it would seem to me that every thing is on the up and up. There shouldn't be a problem. However, being the paranoid person i am, I made our agent make a note and leave it on his desk, so he wouldn't "forget" what we talked about. I thought it might help if i was confronted by another agent. Like we've all said, we worked to hard to get these licenses to mess around and lose them!
I guess "What timing" has gotten it taken care of as he has not posted back. I would be more than happy to pick up this bird from him and deliver it to the rehab center.
Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines "Give a man a fish, and you'll feed him for a day; give him a religion................ and he'll starve to death while praying for a fish."
Utah is very strict. If you do not have a falconry, rehab or education license you cannot even touch wildlife. Even if you are taking an injured animal (passerine, raptor or mammal) to a rehab facility or a vet and you get caught they rack your a$$. Minimum of a $1200 fine and usually 2 to 5 days in jail......they are horrible here. Also vet have to be licensed for wildlife care also or must be placed on the rehabbers permit as a subpermittee or they get fined and have their license pulled. Utah su@ks for their wildlife laws.
Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines "Give a man a fish, and you'll feed him for a day; give him a religion................ and he'll starve to death while praying for a fish."
Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines "Give a man a fish, and you'll feed him for a day; give him a religion................ and he'll starve to death while praying for a fish."