Imagine being able to hear a mouse’s heartbeat under almost a foot of snow, or having the ability to fly nearly 400 km/h. It might seem like something in a superhero movie, but for birds of prey, it’s just another day.
Matthew Morgan is a falconer and co-owner of The Eyrie, a birds of prey training and education organization based in Apsley, Ont.
“We train raptors to do all sorts of different things, like educational demonstration, movie and television work, pest control; pretty much anything someone would need a raptor for, we can help with that,” said Morgan.
He said he has always been fascinated with raptors and has been working with birds for about a decade. Now he is on a mission to educate the public and promote animal and habitat conservation.
“Our goal is to educate people about raptors that are in their area and leave with a desire to learn more and help protect the environment that the animals share with us.”
Co-owner Kristin Morgan said through demonstrations, people get an up-close and personal experience with birds that are typically elusive in the wild and that can inspire others to take an interest in conservation.
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“The more people know, the more people will care and will help out, too, and being able to spread that as far as we can across Ontario or Canada, as far as we can reach, is pretty amazing to me,” she said.
Speaking of amazing, the site is home to 15 birds of prey, like Gaebora.
“He is our just coming up on two-year-old great horned owl,” said Morgan.
“Great horned owls are one of the most impressively powerful animals in the world. With their feet they are able to exert a grip strength of over 450 psi (pounds per square inch), compared to the humans about 70 psi.”
Not only that, great horned owls have such sensitive ears, they can hear a mouse’s heartbeat under about 10 inches of snow.
The site is also home to falcons — one aptly named Millennium Falcon — a bald eagle named Deacon and a black vulture named Lilith.
“Vultures are very manoeuvrable along the ground; their legs are built differently than other birds of prey because they are a scavenger,” said Morgan. “They are purely scavengers; if it is alive, they want nothing to do with it.
“Other birds of prey are very instinctual-based because they are hunters. Turkey vultures and black vultures especially are not hunters so they have to be a little bit smarter to deal with a lot of other predators that would either make meals out of them or steal meals from them.”
And because of their diet, vultures have developed incredibly strong stomach acid that can kill different bacteria and even some viruses, such as rabies.
For now, the team primarily travels to schools and festivals for demonstrations, but is introducing more educational, on-location events.
For more information, you can visit The Eyrie’s website at theeyrie.ca.
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