Peregrine falcon success celebrated

By Willis Patenaude | Times-Register

The peregrine falcon, known for being the fastest animal in the world with a diving speed at over 200 miles per hour, is a large predatory bird. Its strong, sharp yellow talons allow it to capture other birds, even while in flight. They’re also a global bird, found on every continent except Antarctica, and live in a variety of habitats, including mountains, forests, cities, valleys, deserts, cliffs and coastlines.

Peregrines are classified as an apex predator, meaning they are at the top of a food chain, lacking natural predators in the animal kingdom. But not all predators roam the sky, scurry along the ground or swim in the waterways. Being at the top of the food chain nearly led to the extinction of the peregrine, as being an apex predator could not prevent the birds from the harmful effects caused by widespread use of DDT, a pesticide to control insects that was being sprayed across agricultural fields in the mid-1960s.

This chemical had a disastrous impact on the food chain, and as a result, on the peregrine falcon, who ate smaller birds that had eaten insects contaminated by DDT. That contamination simply made its way through the food chain, accumulating in the falcons’ systems to great consequence, especially among female falcons, as it negatively affected their ability to lay healthy eggs.

Instead, eggs were now more fragile and weak, with increasingly thinning shells that would crack before they could hatch, bringing about an over 75 percent population decline that reached perilous levels. There were more than 350 nests in the eastern United States prior to 1960, but as few as 39 pairs located in the lower 48 states after. 

The dramatic decline led to the bird being listed as endangered in 1970, and it remained on the list of endangered species when Congress adopted the Endangered Species Act (ESA) in 1973.

Enter Bob Anderson, considered by many as the “godfather of peregrine falcons on the Mississippi bluffs.” Anderson became a falconer in the 1960s, and in the 1970s, after the peregrine found its way onto the ESA, he started breeding captive female falcons to spur restoration efforts. Through those efforts, chicks released in nest boxes attached to bridges and power plant smokestacks have produced over 1,500 offspring.

In addition to those efforts, a falcon restoration program was initiated by the Iowa DNR in 1989, with 23 birds released in Cedar Rapids. Between 1989 and 2003, 169 captively reared birds were released in Iowa, marked by the historic nesting along the Mississippi River bluffs in 1999.

But getting to that point, regardless of who was behind the effort, took dedication, patience and years of releasing falcons and waiting for the results.

Results started slowly, commencing in 1986, when Anderson released a peregrine falcon MF-1 that would become the first of its kind to not only return but also breed in the Midwest since the mid-1960s.

Following that success, the Raptor Resource Project (RRP) was created by Anderson along with several friends and other dedicated falconers who continued the work. By 1990, 25 peregrine falcons were produced in the wild in the Midwest. That number grew to 87 in 1994 and hit 214 by 1999, when the species was finally removed from the ESA. Numbers continued to grow throughout the 2000s.

However, during those early efforts, Anderson ran into some difficulty getting falcons to migrate to the Mississippi River bluffs, until a new strategy was developed using “hacking,” a process that includes holding and feeding the birds in the hack box for a few days, until it is opened and they are free to fly, or at least learn. They remain in the hack box for an additional six weeks until they are capable of capturing food on their own, as well as imprinting the cliffs as a nesting site into the mind of the young birds.

Hacking occurred in known nesting locations, and between 1981 and 1988, over 200 peregrine falcons were “hacked” in the Midwest. At Effigy Mounds National Monument, a similar effort took place from 1998 into 1999, to reintroduce the peregrine falcon at Effigy Mounds.

During that time, 18 birds were released from hacking boxes attached to the cliffs, but the falcons quickly dispersed, traveling up and down the river. Although a nest was confirmed in Queens Bluff, Minn., in 2000, it was another 18 years before a nest was spotted at Effigy in May 2018, when William Smith, a biologist volunteer with the Raptor Resource Project, spotted the bird in what an Effigy Mounds news release stated was the “first ever recorded discovery of peregrines in the park.”

Recently, Effigy Mounds celebrated the 25th anniversary of falcons being released on the bluffs at the park, with a presentation by Dave Kester, a master falconer from the RRP. Kester opened with a joke about being more of a “field guide than a presenter,” relying on an “analog” approach that included a poster board display with images of peregrine falcons.

Kester started with a history lesson, touching on the decline of the peregrine falcon and DDT effects, and referencing the book Silent Spring that looked into the harm of DDT. He then moved into the recovery efforts of men like Anderson, who was Kester’s mentor and had “the greatest effect” on his life.

Kester noted the “labor intensive” efforts at Effigy Mounds in 1998 and 1999, where hack boxes containing nine birds were placed at Hanging Rock. It’s also where Kester spent most of those two summers, from dawn to dusk, monitoring the birds and walking the “mosquito mile” to bring them food. According to Kester, those birds would return to the area in the following years, especially at Maiden Rock in Wisconsin and along the river. Nests started to populate, leading to an “unqualified success.”

Today, Kester continues to rappel down the cliffs to band nesting falcons, giving them what he referred to as a sort of “social security number,” which gives the RRP the ability to monitor the population of falcons in the area.

Starting from a goal of wanting to achieve 15 to 20 pairs of falcons in the Upper Midwest, all combined efforts, including those of the RRP, have far exceeded that goal. There are now nearly 400 pairs throughout the Upper Midwest, with 20 known active nests in Iowa alone. 

The restoration of the peregrine falcon is a testament to hard work over the last three decades of a dedicated group of falcon and conservation enthusiasts who were determined to rescue and preserve the existence of nature’s apex predator.

“It’s nice to have a successful conservation story,” Kester said.