Recently, a small Merlin hawk flew into an open shop on Tatlow road in Smithers. It was chasing a small bird. The Merlin hit it's wing against the shop wall and broke a small bone. The
hawk could no longer fly.
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| An injured Merlin on the mend |
The word went out to Keith Hodson who has a farm on the Quick Road. The Merlin is recovering nicely in Keith's care and should be ready to return to the wild in a couple of weeks.
Nursing
injured hawks is not new for Keith Hodson. He has been involved with hawks from the age of 13. As a boy, he watched expert falconers use hawks to chase gulls from runways at a major airport. Keith was fascinated.
The falconers helped
Keith obtain a hawk and taught him how to train the bird to hunt rabbits and game birds. |
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It didn't stop there. Keith ended up studying Biology in school and wrote his Masters Degree thesis on....Merlin hawks!
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| Keith Hodson banding Peregrine chicks on the Thelon River, NWT, in 1969 |
Keith then worked for the Canadian Wildlife Service for about seven years. He travelled across the Canadian Arctic and helped measure the level of pesticides in the eggs of Peregrine falcons. The numbers
of Peregrine falcons had fallen sharply and research was needed to find the cause.
The result of the studies was the ban of DDT and types of chlorinated hydrocarbons such as Dieldrin and Aldrin that were used by
prairie farmers for pest control.
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