4 minute read
Falconer Juliana Myhre Takes Flight
PHOTO COURTESY OF JULIANA MYHRE
BY CHELSEA CHAMBERS
She soared through the air with precision, diving towards the rabbit that Juliana Myhre had scared out into the open. Ghrelin stood on her prize while Myhre made her way to dispatch the rabbit. Myhre offered Ghrelin a lure garnished with a sizable piece of meat as an equitable trade for her prey. Once Ghrelin had made the trade, Myhre carried her, her meal, and the rabbit back to the car.
“I’ve had birds my entire life,” Myhre said. “I begged my parents to get me a parakeet when I was a kid, and it was something of a gateway bird. From there I had parrots, chickens, geese, ducks…” she trails on, listing the myriads of animals she’s loved and rescued throughout her lifetime. Ghrelin, her red-tailed hawk, is named after the hunger hormone and was the first bird she’d trapped herself. The two bonded over their shared hunger—for both knowledge and prey.
Nearly halfway through the pursuit of her General Falconer’s License, Myhre aspires to join the ranks of Idaho falconers. “According to Fish and Game, we have one of the highest ratios of falconers per capita, at about 300 total in Idaho,” shared Mike Garets, Master Falconer and one of the mentors Myhre works with while she’s apprenticing. “For comparison, the entire state of California only has about 700 falconers.”
Myhre has been working and volunteering with animals for years. Alongside her affinity for the natural world, she’s spent time at the Ruth Melichar Bird Rehabilitation Center and was recently offered a supervisory role. Soon, she will be applying for veterinary programs with an emphasis on avian medicine. “It’s a really underserved portion of the animal community,” she said passionately. “In a perfect world, I would like to eventually have a mobile practice, because as you can imagine, it’s often stressful for birds to travel.”
Myhre’s voice caught as she shared that Ghrelin had recently succumbed to a fungal infection. “I had the unique opportunity to be present at her postmortem exam.” She paused for a moment and took a deep breath. You could feel the love in her voice as she said, “I learned so much from Ghrelin. But it’s hard, sometimes, to remember that they are wild animals, and they can get sick and come down with parasites. It’s a hard truth.”
Myhre plans to trap another bird in the coming season as she continues her General’s license certification. “Falconry helps wild passage birds survive the winter,” she explained. “First year birds are not often as skilled at hunting, and when prey is sparse, survival rates drop.” The mortality rate for juvenile raptors can be upwards of 80% in their first year. By spending the cold season with falconers, they are guaranteed a meal, even if their hunting rates are low at first.
In the coming spring, Myhre will release her second hawk back into the wild, get married, apply for her General’s license, and prepare to attend veterinary school. With Ghrelin’s memory forever implanted in her heart, it’s a guarantee that Myhre will continue to make leaps and bounds in conservation and avian medicine. Who knows, maybe in a few years you’ll see her mobile clinic driving down the road—saving lives and making the world better, one animal at a time.
