by Thomas Smith

On a cold Monday morning, I arrived at Scotch Line Landfill. As soon as the co-owner of Royal Canadian Falconry arrived in his truck, dozens of herring gulls that were feasting on the landfill took to the skies.

For the past three weeks, Andrew Carroll and his team at Royal Canadian Falconry began visiting the Scotch Line Landfill to deter the gulls with their birds of prey. In the past, they have serviced the Haliburton Landfill to work on controlling their pigeons. From only three weeks of their sessions, the gulls can recognise that Carroll’s truck contains a predator. On this occasion, that predator’s name is Quetzel, a Harris’s hawk.

“I started doing this in 2017,” says Carroll.

“Me along with my wife Amy MacAlpine started a company called Royal Canadian Falconry and we do a lot of fun things, we do a lot of education, demonstration, talk to kids about conservation, schools, camps, and renaissance fairs,” says Carroll. “But we have another side of the business and that is bird abatement, or bird control.”

“We use our trained raptors to deter nuisance birds from all sorts of sites. Things like oil refineries and keeping the pigeons out of the infrastructure, to blueberry orchards and keeping all the nuisance birds from eating the crops, to keeping the gulls out of the landfill. This kind of work takes me all over the province doing all sorts of fun things.”

“If I’m doing gull nesting prevention on rooftops in the GTA, it will be a couple visits a week for a couple hours to convince the gulls not to nest there. Once the gull nesting season is over, the gulls have no reason to be there, so I don’t need to be there.”

“During the blueberry season, when the berries are starting to ripen, the birds are going to be there all day every day. So, during the growing season, we can be there sun up to sun down protecting their crops.”

While bird abatement borrows techniques from falconry, by definition, bird abatement is not falconry as it does not involve actively hunting with a bird of prey.

“You don’t just go out and find a wild falcon,” says Carroll. “There is an apprenticeship program here in the province.”

“It can be tricky to get into the sport because you have to find somebody willing to take you on as an apprentice,” says Carroll. “The birds that we use are all captive bred. They were bred in captivity for the purpose of falconry. To be able to obtain these birds that we own, you have to have the special licenses and all your qualifications to obtain them,” says Carroll.

The apprenticeship period is a minimum of 15 months to encompass two hunting seasons, but can take longer at the discretion of the mentor. A falconry license and small-game hunting license is mandatory in Ontario to participate in falconry. It is also recommended to get a migratory bird hunting license.

“There is a wild trap program where some falconers will go out and catch one from the wild, but that is really for the purposes of conservation,” says Carroll.

For birds of prey, 80 per cent do not make it to their first year.

“There are various reasons for this high mortality rate including injury, competition with siblings, predation by other animals like foxes, coyotes, other birds of prey, etc. We do see a large die-off in the early winter months due to starvation,” says MacAlpine. “The decrease in temps means they need more food to keep warm, yet the prey is less available because most mammals don’t breed over winter, some hibernate, young mammals have gained experience and learned how to evade predators, and the migratory birds have headed south. Increased need for food, with decreased available prey is a deadly combination.” “They are new, they don’t know how to hunt very well,” says Carroll. “When we do the wild take program, we go out and trap one of the juveniles, we hunt with them for one or two seasons, let them learn how to be a bird of prey without all the risks that go along with being a bird of prey.”

“So now, Mother Nature has a breeding age bird that is successful at hunting so they can have a long, successful life,” says Carroll. There is a list of approved species in Ontario that can be captured, but must be taken under a certain age. Some falconers will also release the wild-caught birds of prey back into the wild to aid in conservation, but it is not required.

At their headquarters in West Guilford, Royal Canadian Falconry offers educational opportunities to guests, the opportunity to handle them, and see the birds in action. They also offer animal wrangling services for films, tv, and other productions and have had their birds featured on HGTV, Animal Planet, and in Rolling Stone.

“My father’s family was originally from Haliburton,” says Carroll. “My grandfather was the doctor in town.” Carroll’s grandfather, Louis Carroll was the first full-time physician to reside in Haliburton.

“Since I’ve moved up here, I’ve met a few older people and they have figured out who I am and they go ‘Oh, your grandfather delivered me and my brothers!’ I feel very at home here because I spent my summers growing up, and we always travelled up here. It just so happened that we found the perfect spot to run our business here. It is very touristy, especially in the summer so it works really well for that side of the business.”

Currently, Royal Canadian Falconry takes care of 20 birds of prey. “We have a variety of falcons, hawks, and owls,” says Carroll. “Most of the birds are dedicated to this falconry-based bird control work. There are some birds we use for educational stuff and we also breed falcons and hawks that we sell to licensed falconers.”

Despite the gull’s penchant for the landfill’s open-air buffet, they have become a growing concern to the health and safety of the staff that work there.

“It is a health and safety concern and damage and destruction. Bird feces carries a lot of bacteria and things that you don’t want around your friends and family. Especially when you have big flocks like this, it gets overwhelming. It is mostly due to health and safety concerns when we are brought onsite,” says Carroll. “Say you are an electrician working on an oil refinery setting up your tools then you come in the next morning and you have pigeon feces all over your equipment, that is a health and safety concern. That is the main reason that we are called in.” Their bird control services are not limited to pigeons and seagulls, but can include abatement of starlings, geese, and cormorants.

“Any nuisance bird, we probably have a solution for you,” says Carroll. “The reason why birds don’t like being around is because we are triggering a fear response in them.”

“They don’t like the hawk, they leave.”

After explaining their business, Carroll brings Quetzel out and lets her fly. Before she even takes off, there are less than 10 gulls on the ground.

The sky, already filled with a hundred flapping gulls swirling in the sky.

“To prevent her actually catching them, I give them a decent head start. When they see her, they get up, and then I will let her go,” says Carroll.

Occasionally, the birds will catch another bird as their prey.

“It’s not even an incident. These birds are protected by the federal government. We work very closely with the ministry to get very special permits to do this kind of work,” says Carroll. “Our job isn’t to catch and kill all the birds in the neighborhood. That’s not our job. Our job is to say this is our turf now, this is our spot.”

Carroll loves working with birds of prey, with the business quickly expanding since they began in 2017.

“They’re just amazing creatures. It is a really special relationship we have with these birds. It is not something you’d have with a cat or a dog. We don’t hang out on the couch tickling their bellies at the end of the night. We are a team, cooperative hunters,” says Carroll. “They have their own autonomy. They have their own personalities. Every single one is different. They let us be a part of their hunt. They let us be a part of it, which is my favourite part of this experience. These amazing creatures have trust and respect for us, enough to let us be a part of what they do.”

Royal Canadian Falconry conducts experiences and workshops out of their centre in West Guilford. For those interested, experiences can be booked at www.royalcanadianfalconry.com. Currently, they are offering a 15 per cent discount on gift cards for workshops and experiences. This sale lasts until Dec. 31.