My Nonprofit Reviews

I wish it were possible to leave no stars because this facility doesn't deserve any. Their public display of the cruelty they inflict on these raptors, while purporting to admire and respect them, is reprehensible. The uneducated public has no way to know that the methods WRA prefers to use are detrimental to the birds' health, and they blindly defend this facility's practices because the people are charismatic and friendly.

Go to any other zoo or respectable rehab center's educational show and you will see birds standing calmly on handlers' gloves with their wings comfortably folded. Their feathers are clean and tidy, the ends of their tail feathers perfectly shaped--not bent or broken. They are free to scratch an itch if they want to, free to look wherever they choose, able to defecate if they have to. They stand on the glove at ease, just as they would stand on a branch or stone in the wild. Anklets and jesses are no different to a trained raptor than a collar and leash is to a dog, or a halter and lead rope to a horse. This method has been in use worldwide, virtually unchanged for literally thousands of years, because it WORKS.

Go to WRA, and see something else, something despicable. See birds with broken and mussed feathers--birds stressed beyond the capacity to cope, being carried about by their thighs, unable to move, unable to close their wings, their mouths gaping wide in fear and stress. Some are stressed to the point that they close their eyes to the world. Videos WRA has posted for public view show a bird (an owl, if I recall correctly) being handled bodily like a doll; one handler holding a kestrel by the legs flings it gleefully through the air like a child with a paper airplane, causing unimaginable mental stress to the bird as well as physical stress on its tiny bones and joints. How can anyone watch this happen and not be disgusted? If you were that kestrel in front of a crowd of squealing children, would you want to be treated that way?

As a licensed falconer who has volunteered countless hours for rehab facilities and a major zoo, I am appalled to see people being so willfully stubborn and callous even after having been educated in the proper handling methods. They should be ashamed of themselves and their permits should be revoked. The birds would be better off anywhere else, and the public would be better off seeing birds of prey handled respectfully by people who genuinely care.

More Feedback