How Falcons Made Ocean City Safer

For 20+ years, an increasingly reckless battle had raged in Ocean City, NJ—between humans and gulls. The gulls had adapted to their people-dense environment and learned that snatching food from humans gave them a quick, easy meal. In 2019, after seeing one too many gull attacks on seniors and kids with pizza or French fries, the mayor knew something had to be done. He found a novel solution in the ancient art of falconry.

Falconry is the art of training wild raptors—falcons, hawks, eagles and owls—to fly to and from a human handler while hunting small game. Increasingly, the raptors are being used for abatement—clearing an area of birds and unwanted pests without killing them. Just the presence of the raptors is enough to move the pests away, at least for a while. Falconry abatement practices are now being used at airports, farms, water treatment plants and public buildings. In Ocean City, raptors are used every few days, creating a back-and-forth which keeps the gulls at a distance much of the time. But it also utilizes the gulls’ beach cleaning activities, as they eat the dead crabs and clams which wash up in the surf.

Falconers play a large role in conservation efforts to save birds of prey. Falconers were the first to notice the catastrophic decline in peregrine falcon populations in the 1960s. The chemical DDT interfered with the birds’ calcium production, resulting in thin eggs which broke before the baby birds were ready to hatch. Falconers donated their beloved peregrine falcons for breeding programs, gathered still-viable eggs for hatching in a lab and delivered the babies back to the nest after hatching. From a low of 39 breeding pairs in 1975, there are now 2400 breeding pairs throughout the country. As more and more species decline due to habitat destruction and climate change, a key lesson can be learned from the falconers who helped save the peregrine. A relatively small group of people banded together, used their knowledge and changed the trajectory of the species.