A Falconry Manual

Greg Ioannou was the past president of the Freelance Editors' Association of Canada and a partner in The Editorial Centre, Toronto.

Frank Beebe, one of North America’s preeminent authorities on raptorial birds, is a former zoo curator and was chief illustrator for B.C’s provincial museum. He has combined his artistic ability with a clear and readable writing style to produce an impressive introduction to some complex subject matter.

One would think that falconry had changed very little since the Middle Ages, but the field is actually dynamic. United States laws declaring various species of falcons to be either extinct, endangered, or threatened spawned breeding programs that used new techniques borrowed from poultry breeders. Many of the birds produced by these programs are hybrids (falcons of all kinds were found to be cross fertile), and these new birds have radically altered North America’s wild falcon and hawk populations, in addition to changing the sport of falconry in North America.

The book covers hawks and falcons in depth, describing their characteristics and how to train them. It is of equal value as a study of the unintended effects of environmental protection legislation.