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Forum
-> Interesting Discussions
Rappel
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 Fri, Nov 09 2018, 3:39 am
Now that we're done with the AMAs, I want to bring up a real issue:
I wanted to become a falconer when I was 16. I found someone who was willing to apprentice me in NY state, and I was going to attend a school upstate where I would have the freedom to roam and train my bird.
In the end, I attended a university in a very crowded, populated area, and I never realized my dream. (You can't raise falcons in an area with a lot of telephone and electric wires.)
Now I live in Israel and falconry is illegal here.
The morwe I think about it though, the more I realize that the essence of falcon training involves a lot of unnecessary hunting, since the bird can't benefit from its kills directly, or it will go wild.
Does anyone know if falconry is halachicly permitted? Has anyone tried it? Why, or why not?
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BadTichelDay
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Fri, Nov 09 2018, 4:12 am
Interesting idea, never thought of it. I can imagine the following problems here:
The first one is צערת בעלי חיים, mostly for the prey of the falcon. If, as you say, most of it goes to waste, as the falcon would turn wild when permitted to eat it, then the prey would die "needlessly", and possibly painfully, being pierced by the falcon's talons.
You could never use the prey either. Non-Jews in historic times would at least partially collect and eat birds that were caught by their falcons, things like doves, quails, partridges, I 'd think.
A Jew obviously couldn't, it would all be treif.
A modern application might be using a falcon to eradicate rodents, and maybe that could be justified halachically, because there would be a benefit for humans involved. It wouldn't be an efficient method, though.
The last thing is, would the training possibly be a צער בעלי חיים for the falcon?
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Rappel
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Sat, Nov 10 2018, 10:32 pm
Rodent removal - maybe. I never really understood why we're allowed to kill pests.
As for the training itself - the falcon does actually enjoy the work. It seems very calm, and not stressed at all, when it's hooded. And it isn't starved - you just feed it other meat then the one it just killed, often cut-up scraps of its old kills. Why would it be צער בעלי חיים?
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sequoia
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Sat, Nov 10 2018, 10:47 pm
This is so cool!
When I was a kid, “Finist the Bright Falcon” was my favorite fairy tale.
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bigsis144
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Sat, Nov 10 2018, 11:41 pm
Historical sources say that Rabeinu Tam practiced falconry. It was a sport of the nobility, like fancy golfing, often used for networking with business contacts (in addition to being a Talmid Chacham, Rabeinu Tam was a businessman).
I think R’ Natan Slifkin has an article about it.e
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