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Pet Hawk?
An-D
EnthusiastAshevilleRegistered User regular
EnthusiastAshevilleRegistered User regular
I'm going to put this all in hypothetical, so please don't yell at me. I am currently in China. And will be for the next year (or more).
[hypothetical]
I'm walking down the street, minding my own business and checking out this pretty rad Buddhist Temple. I turn a corner and there are vendors there with just...birds. Live birds. Mostly songbirds, but they have a few other weirder things (magpies, weird blue-bird-thing etc). They also have a hawk. A small hawk. In a tiny, tiny cage. It looked so incredibly cramped up. It couldn't even stand, let alone spread it wings. Then, it looked up at me and my cold, black heart grew seven sizes and I (hypothetically) impulsed bought it for 25rmb.
I first find a bigger cage.
[/hypothetical]
Then what would I do?
[hypothetical]
I'm walking down the street, minding my own business and checking out this pretty rad Buddhist Temple. I turn a corner and there are vendors there with just...birds. Live birds. Mostly songbirds, but they have a few other weirder things (magpies, weird blue-bird-thing etc). They also have a hawk. A small hawk. In a tiny, tiny cage. It looked so incredibly cramped up. It couldn't even stand, let alone spread it wings. Then, it looked up at me and my cold, black heart grew seven sizes and I (hypothetically) impulsed bought it for 25rmb.
I first find a bigger cage.
[/hypothetical]
Then what would I do?
An-D on
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And, I don't think they would eat them. They're small birds. The RMB:Meat ratio would not really make sense, especially when you can get a fat chicken for just a little bit more. I'm going back tomorrow to talk to the guy with a translator (my Chinese was not good enough to keep up with him).
It's diet is going to be fresh, raw meat. Ideally, it should have a flight session every day for exercise and a large flight cage (like 4' x 8' x 4'). And you won't be able to bring it back.
As long as the bird didn't imprint on humans and isn't injured in any way, it should be able to make a fine recovery back into the wild.
I work with a bird of prey rehabilitation center here in the states, so ask me anything you want and I'll get you a professional answer.
What do you think his best option is? Set it free now, or find a place like the other poster mentioned where people actively use hawks for hunting and give it to them?
What he should do is dependent on if he wants to keep it as a pet or release it at some point. If he wants to release it, he should seek to do so right away as soon as he can prove the animal could survive. Not sure how to do that though, but hopefully the people he bought it from can tell him how old the hawk was when they got it. That should give us a better idea of things.
Hawks, depending on the species, live anywhere from 10-16 years, so unless you are planning on living there that long, or releasing the hawk, this is something to consider.
IF you have actually purchased this, please get a larger cage, the cage rubbing against it's wings can permanently damage them.
This is all dependent on how old the bird was when captured. If it is imprinted, and has spent the majority of its youth around humans, purchasing and releasing this animal is a death sentence.
Good on you for doing something awesome! I can't offer much advice, but I just wanted to say thanks. Some people don't respect animals they way we should.
Does China have bird sanctuaries/protected lands? That might be something you could do.
I'm in Changchun, in the Jilin Province. I'm not planning on keeping it for life, releasing it would be the final goal, but there are two things that I'm trying to consider: (1) What if its wing(s) are broken? (2) I'm in North China, it is already getting hella cold. When the main of winter hits, I'm looking at it getting to -20F at some points, and staying that low most of the time. I'm worried that if I immediately release it, it'll freeze to death within a week. Its not that cold yet, but the temperature is dropping pretty quick.
Also, I'm not sure the guy is going to know anything about the bird other than how to catch them. It is a bird-pet(?) street vendor. Kind of like a hot-dog stand in NYC...but selling live birds. Not exactly the sharpest knives in the block (No offense if you know a hot dog vendor with a PhD...I'm just trying to find an American comparison).
If I do end up keeping him for a while, it is ridiculously easy to find raw meat here (China does that right) and I'm able to buy live mice or smaller birds live if I want to go full natural with my hawk-buddy. I don't know if there are any bird experts here, but I think I've pegged it as a Japanese Sparrowhawk (they catch live birds in flight to eat).
No word back from Falconry place.
I don't know if it'll ever make it in the wild -- I have to assume its whole life has been in captivity, or it was at least snatched at a very young age.
Step 1: Acquire large cage (I want to get a pet bird eventually, anyway)
Step 2: Acquire hawk
Step 2.5: Put hawk in bigger cage.
Step 3: Observation. Make sure its okay, able to move, not dead etc. I'll keep him and feed him for a day or two until he's got some fight back in him.
Step 4: Don't get eyes beaked out
Step 5: Take hawk out of city. Release. Salute dramatically. Hope for the best.
Step 6: ????
Step 7: Profit.
Sound good?
The only question is if feeding it for a day or two is going to do any harm. I personally don't think it will.
You might find some falconers online to see what to feed it to get its strength up. I watched a falconer demonstration once and it looked like he was giving the bird pieces of (raw?) meat, but I'm not positive.
Fixed it for you. I imagine the countryside would be a much more Falcon friendly environment.
This is based on intuition and no data, so if someones got a better idea please correct me.
***EDIT***
Update: Hawk-guy was MIA today, but I have just gotten to his location late. I asked a shop keeper and after some confusion (Calling him the 'Bird-Man' didn't seem to make sense in Chinese), he said that he would be back tomorrow.
I got an awesome wooden cage though. Pretty big. It'll make a good temporary home before the release.
Disclaimer: I'm building on non-bird care experience here.
I'd suggest giving him live prey, assuming there's room in the big cage for him to operate a bit. My thinking here is to see if he at least knows how to kill and eat what he kills (not sure how their hunting instinct works, but there are animals that kill instinctively but have to be taught to eat what they kill).
Rats should work. How's the pet trade in China? I know in a lot of ornamental fish are exported from there to the US, and that a lot of surrounding countries export reptiles and fish, but I don't know about reptiles from China specifically. Either way, where they sell snakes, they sell live rats.
almost all hawks catch airborne/auboreal prey in flight. they don't walk up and start pecking at it vulture style.
edit: hmm it seems they also drop from perces onto grounded mammals and reptiles so if the cage is high enoug it might go for it.
Since I don't have pics of the bird yet, here is a pic of the awesome cage I got:
I talked to the bird of prey rehab center I work with and one of the women there, who knows her shit btw, is willing to help you. PM with private info sent.