Fear imprinting?

[Jack Merlin]

Nick Fox lists several types of imprinting which he defines (briefly) as types of learning. We all have some idea of imprinting on humans so I won't go into that.

Birds learn things from their parents. I've heard it called "social learning". Wild sparrowhawks, back in the days when they were heavily persecuted, probably learnt fear of man from their parents as we seldom saw them and if we did they made themselves scarce very quickly!

OK, I'm wondering if there is any way we can reduce the natural fear response when we catch birds up in the aviary after the moult or after fledging, or doesn't it matter?

My experience is in dog training and I train a lot of stuff the minimalist way. In other words, I'm a lazy beggar!<g> Firing a shot as I'm about to let the dogs out for exercise gets them to think positively about the noise and avoids gunshyness. Dropping and coming to call is initially taught as a game. And so on.

I blow a whistle when I go to feed the hawks. It is a straight whistle for ordinary feed but a referees whistle when it is fresh killed game or pigeon. The birds react accordingly when out hunting and it works.

I am now beginning to get worried about catching young goshawks (assuming the eggs are fertile!!) in the breeding aviary and I'm thinking how I can reduce the stress as much as possible. I know the parents will go ape and alarm call, etc. and expect that to be interpreted by the eyasses and associated with me.

Can this trauma be avoided -- or doesn't it matter?

[Hardcore Hawker]

Jack merlin i would say that the stress of catching up and manning Etc cannot be avoided but will obviously fade during the training period and through subsequent positive reinforcement if this was not the case all birds used by falconers would never reach the stage of flying free and returning of thier own free will not because they are in anyway starving which a trained bird should never be. If they were that traumatised by early events in thier life they would not return once loose under any conditions it is a very interesting subject that you have raise though and an example of this i have seen in a friends breeding project. He breeds harris hawks and every year he spends time sitting in with the adults as they raise the young as they are very steady and do not take exception to this at all and all of his youngsters virtually step onto the fist when it comes time to take them up. He had them rear some gos chicks for a friend last year and he repeated this with them in the aviary and they were as steady as a rock from the onset. This will only work imo where the parents will tollerate it without showing fear.

[Tim Laycock]

Derry, do you mean catching the eyasses at pulling time?
Do you have a chamber to place them into?

Are you going to imprint one :lol: :yawinkle:

[As The Falcon Her Bells]

Most of this you probably already know, but I chear my views anyway.
If you are talking about the mental stress only there is not really that much you can do.
We make sure to emidiatly put a hood on the birds when we catch them, as soon as we step out of the aviary, most of raptors "fear triggars" are visual rather then sond and handling.
If there is many birds to cath in one aviary we try to catch as many as possible in the same time to reduce the stress of going in again and again.

For the physikal stress during the manning and handling process we give some supplement on the food (buy it from a Australian company, its just a vitamin and miniral booster for birds under stress or who is ill etc.) and a small amonth of sporonox to prevent asper.
Its a very interessting tought if you can somehow use a positiv "signal" as the food vissle to reduce the stress, but I think with untrained birds it would be hard, however with already trained birds who is to be brough out after moult a recuction in weight inside the aviary and the use of a "positive food signal" should work?!

[FlameHairedFalconer]

I was unfortunate enough to train a harris hawk which had been caught up a number of times and moved aviaries prior to being caught up for training. He hated humans with a passion that did not diminish through the manning period and spend most of the time in the field knocking 7 bells out of me rather than hunting. Fear 'imprinting'?? Most definately!

FHF

[Hobby]

I have had, I believe, direct experience of this fear imprinting from parents.I have had two H hawks from the same parents in following years.The first was left in longer with the parents,of which the mother was quite jumpy and not particularly calm.This bird trained well and was a regular HH and was a good bird but for me was always a little jumpy himself and I never really bonded with it in the way that I wished.
The following year I decided to take a bird earlier before hard penning and before any of the other ofspring had been taken from the aviery,in fact the taking of this bird from the aviery would have been the only disturbance it would have experienced from man.This bird is of a lot calmer disposition and is a total delight,I feel she never learnt the fear of man from the parents like the previous bird.She was a week before hard penning and never imprinted on me,as there was no food association between us,although I handled her every day.My view is that the first bird had a fear of man from the parent bird which occured when the other ofspring were taken from the aviery.So I believe yes it does matter.My view is that birds maywell be just that little bit better off without the fear association at an early stage,as I do believe it is imprinted on them and is possibly always under the surface.

[SSL]

I know it wont help you Jack, but I'm sure this is a damn good reason for using Imprints to rear.

You could always catch up at night when the hawks are less active. As Nick Fox suggests when removing young Falcons from the 'hack pen' to avoid excess stress.

[OutFlying]

Depending on the design of your aviary, there should only be 2 times of potential stress -

1) at 10 days to ring the young goshawks - no lasting damage or major stress at this time.

The parent hawks need removing at around 6 - 7 weeks, this can be done via a solid slide between the aviaries, no need to go into the penn just pulled back the slide and trap the adult gos in that side and then remove at night, do the male first and then the female once the young gosses start to harass her. With the parents removed the young tend to be steadier.

2) at 9-10 weeks when taking up the young eyass, just catch them up at night.

Jim.