As trucks disgorged garbage and bulldozers pushed the trash into neat rows, Daniel Hedin stood in the middle of the dump and scanned the gray sky for dirty birds. When a small flock of seagulls drifted in, he looked at the falcon perched on his wrist.
Zoe exploded into the air, swooping low before rising into a stiff wind to scatter the nervous gulls. Mission accomplished. She returned to Hedin's gloved hand for a reward of raw pigeon meat.
"The ground and the sky can be covered in gulls," Hedin said, stroking Zoe's breast feathers. "For these people operating heavy machines, it's like operating in a blizzard."
The Olinda Alpha landfill has declared war on the nuisance birds, but rather than using air cannons or high-tech scarecrows, it's fighting fliers with fliers. The dump on a plateau high above suburban Orange County is part of an explosion in falconry for profit in recent years, with one-time hobbyists launching their raptors into the skies above vineyards, farms, landfills, shopping complexes and golf courses nationwide.
The number of professional falconers nationwide is tiny, but recent changes in federal guidelines have nevertheless created a niche industry that's growing rapidly and changing the dynamics of a sport that dates back millennia. Since 2007, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has granted 99 special permits to use captive-bred birds of prey for "bird abatement" to chase away avian pests such as starlings, grackles and seagulls.
Companies from California to Texas promise a no-kill, natural solution to cities bedeviled by bird droppings, wineries plagued by grape-snatchers and landfills harassed by gulls that can carry rotten bits of refuse miles from the dump before dropping them in suburban yards.
"It's exploding. I've had to turn away a lot of work, and it's only because I have so many people in line," said falconer Jeff Cattoor, who started BlackJack Bird Abatement in Ft. Worth, Texas, and has seen his business double each year.
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