boy injured by hawk during show » Greater Vancouver Zoo

boy injured by hawk during show
04-09-2008

a four-year old boy was injured by a Harris' hawk during a free-flight demonstration at the zoo
Boy attacked by raptor at Greater Vancouver Zoo, woman says

05-09-2008

oh goody!Another reason for IDA and PETA to go ape crap on the zoo about how the hawk was unfed and not handled well!Ugh,trust me...your going to see alot of posts about it

There's more to this story...
05-09-2008

...than the media might have said, of course.

First and foremost: Morgan, the FEMALE (the paper erroneously said 'he') Harris hawk involved, has a LONG history of unpredictable and aggressive behavior towards EVERYone, including her owner and his volunteers. She left a good-size scar on the thumb of our (my wife and myself) falconry mentor, who used to work at the raptor show.

As someone else has already pointed out, in a different forum, she should have been removed from the show years ago. Picking her for "chase-the-lure" duty was as stupid as choosing a four-year old kid to do the pulling.

What was worse was the fact that Gary Worley, the show's owner and lead trainer, was dumb enough to ask the kid to pull the lure in AFTER Morgan had attached herself to it. The first thing a bird's going to think in that situation is "My food! MINE!!"

Given that, and her history, I'm not at all surprised she acted as she did.

In light of this most recent incident, and all too many others, I do not trust Mr. Worley's judgment at all. I don't care if he has, supposedly, been doing this for thirty years. The way he does things has already cost a golden eagle her life (different incident earlier this year, around June 27th), and may have emotionally scarred a four-year old for life.

There is simply no excuse for any of it.

Happy travels.

---
Bruce

05-09-2008

I've only read the piece linked to above and I don't know an awful lot about falconry, but I thought it was a bit silly having a four-year-old child involved in the show, and equally, as said in the above post, getting the boy to pull in the lure with the bird attached just seemed stupid.

06-09-2008

This is yet another piece of bad publicity that has emerged from the Greater Vancouver Zoo, which is a terrible establishment that was not even a member of CAZA for a recent period of about 3 years. Stolen spider monkey, killed spider monkey, atrocious enclosures that had to be fixed, 4 dead hippos, solitary confinement of a baby hippo, dead golden eagle, a Harris hawk attacking a boy, breeding of lions that was not at all recommended by CAZA...the list goes on. There is honestly not one decent exhibit in the entire zoo, and with only 650 animals and 250,000 visitors each year I'm surprised that the place stays open.