In Conservation with Simon Thomsett: The Rugged Life of an Eagle Man

In this unforgettable first episode of a special three-part Talons of Hope trilogy, host Dr Munir Virani sits down with one of the most extraordinary figures in the world of raptor conservation: Simon Thomsett.

Falconer, eagle man, artist, mentor, rescuer, rehabilitator, adventurer, and master craftsman of the wild, Simon is the kind of person scriptwriters would struggle to invent. His life has been shaped by birds of prey, by danger, by beauty, by grit, and by an unshakable devotion to the natural world.

For more than three decades, Munir has known Simon not just as a conservation icon, but as a personal mentor and friend. Some of his most treasured memories are of time spent with Simon in the field, listening to unforgettable stories around a campfire, tales of eagles, impossible rescues, near misses with lions, and a life lived far beyond the ordinary.

In this deeply personal and richly layered conversation, Simon reflects on the pursuits and experiences that made him a legend. From breeding and successfully releasing Crowned Eagles, to conducting surgery and fitting prosthetics to injured raptors, to mentoring hundreds of people around the world, Simon’s life has been one of rare skill, compassion, originality, and purpose.

This episode explores the man behind the myth: his achievements, artistry, adventures, hard-earned philosophy, and the fierce belief that every bird matters. It also asks deeper questions about how conservation has changed over the decades, what has been lost, what still matters, and whether there is still hope for raptors and the wild places they inhabit.

This is more than a podcast. It is a tribute to a singular life, and to a man who has inspired generations to care more deeply, act more courageously, and look at birds of prey with awe, respect, and responsibility.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Welcome to Talon Republic. I'm your host, Munea Varani, speaking to you right from the heart of Madagascar's capital city Antanana River. My guest today has spent the last two weeks with me trapping and tagging city falcons as part of a project supported by the Mohammed bin Zayyed Rapt Conservation Fund in partnership with the Peregrine Fund Madagascar Project. Today begins a very special three-part trilogy with one of the most extraordinary, gifted, and unforgettable characters in the world of wrapped conservation, the legendary Simon Thompson. Now, I've known Simon for more than three decades, and I can say this with complete honesty. There is no one quite like him. Simon is one of those rare people who seems to belong as much to the wild as to the human world. He's the falconer, an eagle man, rescuer, rehabilitator, artist, educator, bushcraftsman, conservationist, adventurer, storyteller, and mentor of the highest order. And I know that last one personally because I'm one of the many people around the world fortunate enough to have learned from him. Over the years, Simon has mentored hundreds of individuals across continents, shaping not just careers, but lives. Some of the most treasured memories with Simon are not boardrooms or conference halls, but out in the field, under the open skies, beside a campfire, listening to his stories. What stories they are? Tales of eagles, rescues, impossible field situations, near escapes with lions and other wildlife, and the kind of adventures that leave you wondering whether you're listening to a conservationist, a bush philosopher, or the main character in an epic film. In fact, if a scriptwriter ever tried to make a movie about Simon, I honestly don't know where they would begin. There is simply too much material. For decades, Simon has lived alongside Raptors with a level of intimacy, instinct, and a practical skill that very few people on Earth could ever claim. He has bred and successfully released crowned eagles, carried out extraordinary interventions to save injured birds, inspired generations of school children, mentored conservationists across the globe, and lived by a philosophy that feels both radical and deeply humane. That every bird matters. But what makes Simon truly legendary is not just what he has done, it is how he has gone about doing it. With grit, with wit, with irreverence, with deep principle, with artistry, and with the rare ability to reach science, pragmatism, compassion, empathy, and simply just rolling up your sleeves and getting the work done. He is, in every sense, utterly his own man. So in this first episode of our trilogy, we step into the world of Simon Thompson. The man, the myth, the mentor, the craftsman, and the conservationist. We explore the pursuits, the achievements, the principles, and the adventures that have made him a legend. And we ask whether, despite everything he has witnessed, he still sees hope for raptors and for the natural world. Simon, my dear friend, welcome to Talons of Hope. Thanks, Monet. Good to be here. Let's get into this straight away. For those who know your name, but not the full depth of your story. How would you describe the journey that made you one of the true legends of the Raptor World?

SPEAKER_01 4:25

Well, it began very young indeed. Um according to my sister who was old enough, it actually began when I was three with uh Alana Falcon, that the temporary warden of the Serengeti had at the time. And uh I was extremely fortunate, obviously, to be born and raised in Kenya. And in those days, birds of prey were just quite literally everywhere, and uh so was wildlife in general. So, really from the early beginning, you know how impressionable a child a child is. So it really was uh impossible to avoid you know, falling with love with them and and having an emotional attachment straight from the word go. Whether or not that's actually been um guiding good conservation policy later in life, I'm not too sure, but one of the biggest things that uh affected me, and I know affects all other young people, is just that early introduction to them.

SPEAKER_00 5:29

If we touch briefly on your early years through the lens of just raptors alone, was there one formative encounter with a bird of prey that set your course? And and how different were the birds and the landscapes then from what you see today?

SPEAKER_01 5:48

Well, suddenly there were three birds of prey that really did set my course. Um, the Lana Falcon that I said. Now, despite being so young, I have a very vivid memory of what it smelt like, um, what it was like just to sit there and look at it with adoration. And um, you know, just the the leather from the falconry equipment that was there as well. All these things sort of became um, you know, deeply ingrained in my mind. And then when I was a kid growing up, um all the kites, for example, simple thing, just like a kite wheeling around inside the garden, whistling as they do. And um my distraction when I was at school was always looking out of the window, looking at the birds of prey, and inevitably the kite followed me through that journey. The simplest and the most commonest of things. And then later in life we had uh crowned eagles nesting in the bottom of my garden. My garden was obviously, you know, my parents' place, and uh we had everything, including all the auca buzzers, black sparrow hawks. The crowned eagles were sitting in a giant buttress tree at the bottom of the garden, and that says a lot for what our gardens used to be like back then. We used to have the occasional rhino and lion in the bottom of the garden, so it's very different from what it is today. And those three really did set me on the inevitable course of just being head over heels for raptors.

SPEAKER_00 7:15

Let's let's talk a little bit more about these crowned eagles. They seem to sit at the heart of your life's work. What drew you so powerfully to them, and what have they taught you about trust, about patience, and about the wilderness?

SPEAKER_01 7:34

So many of my cohorts, contemporaries, uh growing up with me were able to go on holidays to go see the big megafauna, but every weekend they would come back with stories about lions and leopards and elephants and stuff. And if anybody went on to continue to do wildlife work, which so many did, it was inevitably for those big charismatic lot. I wasn't uh in any way uh unfortunate growing up, but I wasn't able to go on those holidays. So I just sat at the bottom of the garden and looked at the crowned eagles. Near to where we lived at that time was the world's biggest eagle biologist and um fearsome uh then agricultural officer Leslie Brown. And there's no doubt that Leslie was uh extremely uh he he brought like a credibility to my fascination. You know, everybody else was looking at these big stuff and he was looking at the big eagles, and really he sort of um did change globally people's perceptions and understanding about birds of prey. And to have him literally as being one's close neighbour, uh very fearsome man, difficult to talk to. But an an early introduction to him, um, where he thought that I would amount to nothing unless I went to school and studied it properly, um set in me um well, I may not be able to get to the normal academic approach to looking at these things, but I'm definitely gonna try my best. So the crowned eagle is the most fearsome predator really within the avian world, and it has been called the leopard of the skies, and its biology is very much the same as a large carnivore. And uh yeah. That was the way I was hooked on crowned eagles for the rest of my life.

SPEAKER_00 9:37

You've spent a lifetime living alongside birds of prey as a a rescuer, um, a falconer, a rehabilitator, an incredible field of biologist, and a guardian. What is it about raptors that has held your loyalty and your fascination so completely for so many decades?

SPEAKER_01 9:59

If you ever look after a bird of prey or you My first fascination was falconry. Um I mean I had them at the bottom of the garden, they were wonderful wild things, but I wonder what it'd be like to possess one. And then you got them on your hand and they're sitting at the bottom of your bed, and you, you know, honestly, I used to have kestrels and auger buzzards and things literally at the foot of my bed. And you cannot but uh be impressed by their gentleness, their intelligence. They're not the big fierce things, they're not the machisimo, you know, monsters that they're supposed to be. They're absolutely the complete contrary of that. Um incredibly intelligent. For example, the laner you can train from the wild to sit on your hand within a matter of days. I know no other animal on earth that you can drive under. Stop your car, wave at it, and it turns its head upside down and looks at you. So you're sort of even driving through the countryside saying hello to the birds of prey, wild ones. They are that interactive with humans, if only we just gave them a chance. Um, so it had everything to do with their demeanour and their personality. And of course, their biology is incredibly complex and very much more different, and very much more challenging than, say, the large carnivores. You're looking at creatures that outlive large carnivores by some three times on occasion, considerably less for cun. They breed much, much fewer young, much more um parental care, much more tenderness to their young for extended periods of time, especially with the big eagles. And so you look at them with a different understanding than, say, most large carnival biologists do. Uh, these are very, very different cognate beings.

SPEAKER_00 11:47

I've had the opportunity to spend time with you when you had your eagles. You know, I'm very familiar with Rosie and Girl, and I've watched you work hard in captive breeding these birds into young birds. I remember Stefan, I remember Emily. And you you're reputed to be the first and only individuals to successfully capture breed breed and release ground eagles back in the wild in Savol. I remember that really well. Can you walk us through what that really takes scientifically, practically, emotionally, and logistically, to give such one of the most powerful, fiercest raptors on earth, you know, what it takes to give a bird like that a genuine second chance at life.

SPEAKER_01 12:38

Well, many years ago I looked into the back of a cage at the Aberdeen Country Club where a crowned eagle's sitting there with a broken wing. He'd been there for about a year and a half previously, wrongly called Rosie. And Johnny Cash had a song about a man named Sue because he was gonna grow up in a tough world, so I gave him I he stayed with the name Rosie because he was gonna grow up in a very tough world. And so he was a good buddy of mine, used to go out hunting and doing things, not very effectively, because he had a very badly broken wing, but he did. And many years later I had to go and get some problem crowned eagles, one of which was Girl, and she was an adult female who'd been shot, and um I had to rescue her with her young her husband, her mate. See how anthropomorphosizing I am already. Had been shot dead just a few days after we took them away, and I put Girl and Rosie together and they fell in love. Now, I like anthropomorphosizing these things because that's what's happening, and I was unable to approach him henceforth. Only when he was feeling sick and needed a bit of care did he allow me to go anywhere near him because he was so defensive of his female. So I put them together in a really not that great enclosure a few years later when I could afford to do so in a in a better location at Athey. And the introduction was very simple, and originally done in the falconry way where you put them in close proximity. You know, go and do stupid things, because falconry teaches you an enormous amount about their behavior. Whatever you may think about falconry, it has been going for quite a few thousand years, and people do know what they're doing in that respect. And um someone uses the falconry style of the introduction, and you make sure it's gonna work okay. You always have the ability to separate things should anything go wrong. But like I said, it was love at first sight. Uh they were mating as soon as I put them together. Um I was able to feed them very good food at the time. And next thing you know, um they laid an egg. And that was, you know, a huge moment, if you want to put it that way. On the African continent. There was the first capture-bred eagle of any sort. Uh and um obviously it hatched, we had young, uh, it should have been a a a monumental occasion. Um but it was all quietly done. If you look into the cage today and realize the amount of money and expense that was put on it, it probably only cost maybe between$200 and$500 to produce the world's first crowned eagle. That says a lot. Because much of it is in the practicality of just sort of cutting corners, being sensible about things, using science if you wish, um, but using the insight that falconry gives you to produce these birds. Later, of course, you recognize you can't release a crowned eagle unless it knows how to hunt and kill, has to be physically fit. Unfortunately, I've always been living on large conservancies and been able to do that. And so you sort of gentle progression which makes common sense. And again, I kind of like making this known. It's the exclusion of clipboard science, where everybody walks around in white lab coats and seems to think that it needs to be extremely well thought through. Um it's basically because I'm suspicious that maybe their academic approach to it has no um previous experience of managing these things intimately. Anyway, it was such a simple thing. Uh some of the chicks we released, uh well all of them, uh the eleven we released, to have some of them get killed. Um, some by leopard, one by crowned eagle. Sorry, one crowned eagle was killed by a crocodile, uh, which was a terrible tragedy because the radio signal was coming from under the water and you could see the crocodiles. Ah, and that was one of my most favorite birds. And um tragedies though you expect is the successes when they happen, such as you see one of the crowned eagles that hatched in your hands sitting in a giant tree with a nest and a mate producing their own chicks. So full circle was done. And that was done some 30 years ago. Today it's extremely difficult to do that kind of management. There's a lot of thinking, a lot of process, a lot of head scratching. Too many biologists with white lab croats intervene. They seem to think that we need to think this through at levels that are um, well, to be honest, absurd. And one's not going to really get anywhere unless one just simply gets down and does the job. So the crowned eagles proved the point that we could do it in Kenya, and we can do other much less difficult birds. Um I mean things like the reintroduction of the peregrine. That was done in the 70s, and uh in my opinion, that's the kind of management we need to do in Kenya. But that is a considerably easier bird to manage than a crowned eagle. It's been great to be able to use what I learned with a crowned eagle on other programs such as the Philippine Eagle. Uh working with you on that one has been a huge validation of what I did in the past has its value today for critically endangered species.

SPEAKER_00 18:10

One of the things I remember most about you, and this is the conversation we've had amongst my peers, contemporaries, colleagues that are working on not only African raptor conservation and ecology, but across the globe. After the late Leslie Brown, many of us consider you as the sort of godfather of African raptor conservation. But you're not you're more than just a raptor man, you're an you're also an artist, you're a craftsman, you're very good at making things with your hands, you're a problem solver, you're someone with a very unusual range of practical abilities. But walk us through where does that versatility come from and how has your artistic eye shaped the way you observe, the way you understand, and the way you work with birds of prey.

SPEAKER_01 19:06

I think I've had the benefit of actually being unemployed for most of my life. And when you've got a huge collection of birds and you live in the bush, you have to be practical. If the leaf springs break on the car, you fix it with as I have done, literally with skin. And um I can talk you through how you do that. If the radiator blows, you know what to do by putting flour or eggs or blood in it. And when it comes around to building a house, which I've done mud houses and things and built them from the ground up, including all the centers, um, you learn those practicalities where you go into the field with often foreign students, especially local students, and you find that they don't even know how to do their shoelaces. And, you know, you go, I have been able to think laterally on some problem-solving, for example, this electrocution issue which is facing us globally. I've in total despair of us being able to fix the problem. And we're not going to be fixing the electricity poles. We've waited close to 30 years to do so. So what I've done is turn the whole thing upside down and fix the birds to make sure that when they get close to the electricity, the radiostatic waves that come out of the poles will now trigger a system on the bird to make the bird turn away. And also using the same technology on lions, too, because I I work on lions and hyenas and other animals as well. And you bring this all to the table, and everyone goes, Oh, we never thought of that. So it's really been the benefit of not having a conventional upbringing and having to be pragmatic and solve things all over the place. And bringing that to the table means that, you know, if there's a problem, like you've got to climb up that cliff, well, you've got to climb up the cliff. Who in the room is going to climb up the cliff? And then you go, still, when I'm over 60, I'm still climbing up and down trees, looking at students quarter my age being unable to do so. So people just are not as pragmatic as they used to be. I seem to feel as though I'm bringing the old generation of people still into the modern world.

SPEAKER_00 21:17

I I really think it's great you're you're bringing that old school traditional knowledge, what raptor biology really entails, doesn't it? Um your birds have crossed into the public imagination in remarkable ways, from appearing in the out of Africa film to being held on the fists of very well-known public figures and celebrities. Uh, I think you showed me a photo of RFK Junior holding an org buzzard. Um Describe to us what has that been like, and do those moments genuinely help people connect a bit more deeply with raptors and conservation?

SPEAKER_01 22:00

you can uh you can go wrong by having birds of prey on people's fists, making it a public thing, a wow, a bird show. Um done tastefully and tactfully. I remember once we had a model shoot. Um some of my birds were in Vogue magazine, for example. And uh unfortunately Vogue magazine isn't um widely distributed throughout Kenya. Uh but certainly it does bring um even in documentaries where people turn on and you're there with millions of people looking at some of your trained birds. One of mine was in Life of Birds uh it was a Marsh Eagle chasing fervent monkeys um all these are sort of theatre displays of birds but portrayed always in a great light I refuse to do things such as showing um you know macabre size of raptor management. There are some things that are best left behind the scenes. You portray things in the best possible light to the largest numbers of people and even if it's a you know beautiful model walking around with a crowned eagle on her fist just for a a you know a a fashion show which has been done it makes people go, oh wow, I didn't realize those were cool. So the moment you sort of get that into the persona, you know the mindset of the common lay person, um I think it's a good thing, but it needs to be tactful done. But um there haven't been that many celebrities of late who are interested. There's usually they go through fads. There are periods where you're going to be called out to put these birds on their fist. But I I kind of play that really very carefully indeed.

SPEAKER_00 23:51

I want to talk to you a little bit about some of the interventions you've done on the rescued birds. You've worked on some birds that have had severe injuries you've carried out surgical interventions and even helped fit prosthetics to raptors what do those moments demand of a person and are there one or two cases that still live in your mind today?

SPEAKER_01 24:17

The surgery approaches to surgery on birds of prey I mean why if you have incredible techniques that you can use on humans, do you not apply the same to a bird of prey? There is a an eye tap which is a intraosseous transcutaneous amputation processis, which is putting a metal pin straight into the bone right through the skin so you can create an extension of their leg or their wing. And these are pro procedures which are done on human human athletes and everybody goes wow that's like leading edge stuff. Well I get them 3D printed in in the Czech Republic and I can get these out really at reasonable price and put them into my burns at at my own cost and have the gratification of seeing these birds being able to be much more mobile. Some of the procedures is where you actually can get them to see them fly, hunt and then go back into the wild which is you know hugely rewarding when you realize it would have been on an operating table, you know, with bones broken three months previously obviously the rehab side of doing this is um is extremely personal as well because you're having to go up get up at night three, four times a night to change hot water bottles. I don't have electricity I live in a mud hut in the middle of a forest and when it comes around to the amount of effort per bird it obviously isn't going to be a solution for saving Africa's birds. When it comes around to poisoning uh being able to be very effective um get to a site maybe within 45 minutes that would otherwise take seven hours to get to you're there whilst the birds are still struggling in death and you're able to resurrect them literally with atropine and both the pilot and myself um very familiar with what we do we hit the ground running quite literally jump out of an airplane before the propellers stop and run into these scenes which are just as macabre as you can imagine. It looks awful and uh actually saving lives and that that is again uh you can't get better than that it's not theoretical it's real one of the things that I admire so much about you and and that really stands out so strongly is your philosophy in that every bird matters.

SPEAKER_00 26:34

In an age of triage in an age of shrinking budgets and conservation at scale why do you still hold so firmly to the value of the individual animal well a journey begins with a single step and if you can't save one individual then you can't save a species and more and more problems are put in one way by bureaucrats.

SPEAKER_01 27:01

If we got rid of the bureaucrats we would be a heck of a long way forward in the conservation and research of raptors in Kenya but throughout Africa and pretty much throughout the world it's now been taken over by processes and there's no doing. I've been blamed for trying to do conservation for conservationist sake and I say to those same people I blame you just for doing biology for biology's sake.

SPEAKER_00 27:28

I mean there comes a point whereby an individual animal if you were to turn away from that bird who you can save um then immoral you're not the right person for the job you've you've lived a life that is full of adventure and extremely unusual pursuits including flying with a paraffan and seeing landscapes from the perspective of birds.

SPEAKER_01 27:59

Walk us through what did being in the air with them teach you that life on the ground could never could oh yeah I've always been a raptor wannabe and I've never been able to fly very well as try as I might and uh yes I can yes I can oh no I can't so I've had loads of accidents so I used to have literally parachutes that were meant for dropping food on refugees I used to cut holes in them and jump off cliff faces and paragliders and then hang gliders and then uh homemade airplanes and everything. I used to be quite proficient at it. So I sort of kind of work my way into trying to be a bird of prey but there have been times when I have been flying along with my own birds very briefly with um lanners which I trained. But when you fly with wild Vero Zegle in particular likes to follow you, it can be actually quite scary because they're in their element and you're not it's like being underwater with a shark. And as as much as you pretend you can swim and scuba dive evidently the shark's gonna you know gobble you up and it can be quite scary. And looking down on the earth as well you realize just how destroyed the earth is um as it when you look down it's gutting you just look across the boundary of a protected area and it's solid humanity and that's what the birds of prey are facing today. I've actually been able to fly with a paraffan with two tawny eagles wild ones and watch most mornings chasing cattle eagers but actually be flying through the clouds with them as they were going after these cattle eagers and actually be part of the whole hunt with them and they ignored me because I used to fly with them so often it's an incredible perspective but it has ended up with quite a few broken bones.

SPEAKER_00 29:49

You seem to embody a very rare balance of science of practical conservation management pragmatism principle and most importantly just getting the work done how have you reconciled those worlds over the years especially when real conservation is often messy it's imperfect and it's also constrained I think because of the frustration that you were saying I mean it is extremely frustrating to retrograde from actions that were taken physical practical actions were taken in the late 60s and early 70s to reintroduce things with captive breeding and reintroductions.

SPEAKER_01 30:35

Yes it costs a lot of money yes it's a lot of time it isn't the last ditch and these are solutions that we required in Kenya in the 70s that the bearded vulture the Lamagar became extinct in 1979 in Hellsgate so we wanted to reintroduce those. Then you bring in the science that's needed once you pack that away which is really easy and it shouldn't cost a dime really expensive stuff which is the actual hands-on stuff. The trouble is is that today we've reversed the whole thing all the biology and the head scratching and the thinking and the pontification can take you as much as eight 10 15 years and one has people whose careers depend upon it but then one doubts that they're actually capable of climbing a tree or doing the captive breeding or anything. So I am very frustrated by the fact that we never get to that point which we were able to do some 40 years ago because of the intervention of all the science. So there's a really messy world as you said it just doesn't gel. And unfortunately when the funding is literally just one honey pot and everybody from researcher conservationist conservation manager is sticking their hand into the same pot it's only those with the conventional academic upbringing and approaches to things which is sort of kind of grim and dour, very um mature they are the only ones who walk away with it. When you get to the sort of the sexy glamorous you know jumping out of airplanes hands on management they all seem to think that that is um low down on the scale of priorities.

SPEAKER_00 32:16

It should really be in burst about a year and a half ago you won the Raptor Research Foundation's Lifetime Achievement Award for Raptor Conservation. Congratulations tell us what does that award mean to you personally especially after a lifetime that has been driven less by recognition and more by devotion, craft and action on the ground well I must say I'm extremely grateful for that award and um still really hasn't sunk in on the fact that it was done internationally.

SPEAKER_01 32:54

I was watching it from Zoom sitting next to the fire with my crowned eagle by my side and um I At three o'clock in the morning at three o'clock in the morning yeah and my Zoom wasn't gonna work but it managed to do so because the forest is so thick I can't get any network. And then sit out there and look at a whole group of people literally some of these people are you know big in the raptor world and it was a it was a very very good feeling. It it has been very frustrating to be working in Kenya um I don't really have any academic conventional background whatsoever. I've trained in practical manner um a number of students and um I guess any resentment that I might have had against the you know the establishment um vanished. Because it means that the one's experience has been recognized. So you you know that was a a a great moment.

SPEAKER_00 34:02

Uh thanks it's I I think it's fair to say that you've been involved in raptor conservation for nearly six decades.

SPEAKER_01 34:12

Who are some of the people who most helped shape who you are today and what did each of them give you that still lives in the way you work and in the way you think oh I owe I owe everything to so many people um I mean go all the way up the list if you wish I mean Leslie Brown wasn't um that encouraging in fact he told my parents that I should think of something else unless I wanted to actually go to university. I couldn't because I had crowned eagles. I even couldn't finish school because I was too busy with the birds. But another person who was extremely important to me was um Paul Sayer who was one of the first vets that actually did very fine surgical interventions for raptors early on here in Kenya. And for the record Kenya was uh one of the leading countries in the world when it came around to raptor biology through Leslie Brown and um preceded so many other people and um Paul Sayer and John Cooper um John quite rightly says that uh his work really was the first um book on veterinary aspects of birds of prey since the book of St. Albans published in I think the 14th century or something. So Kenya were extremely fortunate for some twists of reason that we um had these peer peers my peers to look up to and you go wow you know I want to grow up and be like them um and of course my parents and everybody else and then all my students and you uh Munir as well um it's sort of it's all sort of coming back it's it's nice to see especially when one is getting into old age there are enormous numbers of people to who I'm grateful too.

SPEAKER_00 36:11

Let's let's build on that a bit you you have mentored a remarkable number of people who have gone on to make major contributions in conservation.

SPEAKER_01 36:20

So when you look back on that legacy of mentorship what gives you personally the greatest satisfaction um well the ability just to sort of sit back and know that other people are just doing the job and they're doing a good job um in some ways of course I may actually be jealous of them because they've exceeded me and I guess it takes a lot of maturity to grow up and say yeah you're jealous of them and that's a good thing. And um I one of the biggest rewards I had at I there was a hill that Leslie Brown used to look at called Eagle Hill. And I used to go back and forth to that thing over the years and it just declined down to there being no birds of prey, no eagles at all. So I went there with Tom Cade in the beginning before we started programs it was in the late 80s we went to see the same study site and he looked at it also with dismay because it's you know got farms all over the forest there and I was ready to go there was nothing to see and it was awful. And then there was this young kid and he was pestering us and he was standing in the back he was trying to get our attention all the time and I was telling him to go away because I was with you know Tom and finally I said yes okay what are you he says ah you must come with me I said we're not gonna go with you got other things to do very important things to do and he says no no no no I have a harrier hawk nesting in my garden I go what so this kid honestly he was like 12 13 or something or other we walk along behind him and right there is an exotic gum tree in the middle of Leslie Brown's old place where rhinos used to be many years previously and there he is pointing at a harrier hawk sitting in the thing and he said harrier hawk and the reason being is that we had a library at the nearby school to which I put a whole load of books and this young man had read the books. And I thought so Tom looked at me and I looked at him and we were both amazed but it was like one of the best feelings I've had. So although there've been loads of academic students and gone to you know very fancy universities all over the world that was what a really meaningful moment.

SPEAKER_00 38:49

What a great story when you think back to conservation as you knew it in your twenties how is it different now in the birds in the habitats in the institutions and in the people trying to save nature what has changed for the better and what troubles you the most well was in the I mean human population was totally different and that's one of the things that people are too shy to bring up game when the 70s it was the talk of the town everybody was talking about it everybody being realistic.

SPEAKER_01 39:32

People are way more accepting I think of it and um obviously the engagement of communities and things um today is is so much more of a task. In the past it was much more easy simply because of the considerably smaller human population. I think to think positively about it, I mean looking Kenya is still amazing and when you consider the enormity of problems facing wildlife the huge human population there's threats threats facing all of our forests river systems everything um which is all too evident even if you fly in at high altitude just look down and going oh my goodness doesn't stand a hope. And yet you see those areas which are still protected and you go into them, they are so important. And Kenya has every right to be extremely proud of that. Any incursions into that which is taking place every day evidently those need to be addressed. But to put a positive spin on it all despite everything it's absolutely amazing that Kenya and much of Africa still has an you know an incredible array of birds of prey and wildlife in general Simon you are known for your honesty and at times for a deep pessimism about the state of the natural world and yet you have devoted your life to healing to teaching to releasing and defending wild creatures. So after everything you have seen where do you still find hope um well I can say that's tough just to prove I am pessimistic and uh however for some reason one gets up in the morning and you've got a bird to fix. As soon as I get home for example I've got to fix a snake eagle's broken leg. I make that my top priority um I am very pessimistic though about the the modern approach which is science for science sake that has to change I will bully as much as I can to get that um not stopped but just made reasonable and I think one can um certainly a lot of colleagues are also frustrated with the processes the government um one can be very pessimistic about the new approaches my hope is is that what we get is a solidarity a bringing together of all those people who have an interest in raptors to put their collective weight behind making these changes happen. So that that's a hopeful thing to look forward to and again I I do see so many people uh we have now social media groups I'm on a WhatsApp group I look at the numbers of people on it the amount of people out there who are appalled at you know brutality of killing birds of prey and it shows a huge difference in mindset in in the average Kenyan between those who are very happy to kill things in the most brutal of manner put it on social media and those who are absolutely appalled by it and that's that's really a a total change and I honestly feel that it's uh um an aspect that we've ignored which is creating a value for wildlife that's intrinsic um I would like to shift the whole uh rationale to saving wildlife away from it having an economic and direct benefit um disease benefits that you know raptors bring to us I'd like to push that down hugely and just say no as Kenyans as Africans we love our birds of prey for no other reason that they are gorgeous, fantastic creatures of creation if you wish, that we are put on earth to save. And if we don't, we are breaking every single moral rule that there is and I actually parting from the science to work with other people particularly religious people because I I'm deeply disappointed in the way Science is taking things to create an intrinsic value for wildlife for no other reason.

SPEAKER_00 44:07

Final question. Simon Young person comes up to you, listens to this podcast, and say, you know, you espouse all these values about raptor conservation. I I want to be somebody, I want I want to, you know, nobody will ever fill your shoes because they are monumental in size, right? What advice do you have for young people who want to go out there with a real definitive mindset of saving raptors?

SPEAKER_01 44:40

Um it's a a very difficult world to navigate through. And um and there are plenty of young people who really are dying to get involved. There are many ways to get involved. Um the rehab side, where you give a bird to a a young person and they fall in love with the thing, and they're gonna do whatever they can when they're older to make sure their bird and those that survive in the wild are gonna be okay. I find that to be way more powerful than a grim scientific journal. I could encourage them to go off and get a degree. In fact, it's almost impossible to get anywhere without a degree, so evidently they're gonna go off and have to do something of that sort. But what we have to do is really sort of make it so that they're under obligations that are personal, um to make it happen because it's gonna be extremely tough for them. I do think that without the, you know people actually interacting with living birds of prey close up, they're never gonna know uh just how incredible they are. If they're gonna do it through the academic, um kind of boring approach of looking at them from a distance or on a computer screen because they have a backpack on, they're not gonna be inspired in any way. It has to be some way of literally forcing upon people inspiration. And yeah, plenty of young people come to my place and I stick a bed on their hand, and they're in heaven. And they're not gonna change after that experience.

SPEAKER_00 46:19

Just so our readers are aware, I'm sitting with Simon Thompsett in a garden just in Madagascar's capital of Antana Narivo. We've just returned from a two-week expedition trapping and tagging Soothi Falcons, um, supported by the Mohammed bin Zayed Rapt Conservation Fund, yeah, along with the partnership with the Peregrine Fund Madagascar Project. Simon, it's been an incredible privilege to sit and chat with you about rapt conservation. And I'm hoping that this is going to be the first of a trilogy series. And thank you so much for your time. Well, thank you, Monir. Today was not simply a conversation about a career. It was a glimpse into a life that is shaped by instinct, by courage, by craftsmanship, artistry, and a profound and deep commitment to birds of prey. What makes Simon Thompson so compelling is not just what he has achieved. Though those achievements are remarkable, it is the way he has moved through the world with grit, irreverence, tenderness, empathy, a deep and profound field knowledge, and a refusal to stop caring for the individual creature in front of him. In a time when conservation can often feel so bureaucratic, so abstract or detached, Simon reminds us that at its heart, this work is still about life, about dignity, about wilderness, and most importantly, about responsibility. Simon has bred eagles, he has healed broken birds, inspired school children, mentored conservationists, and lived closer to the pulse of raptors than most of us could ever imagine. He has shown that conservation can be scientific and practical, but also deeply human. It can be principled and scrappy, it can be visionary and grounded at the same time. So, Simon, thank you for your life's work, for your fierce originality, and for the countless ways you have shaped birds, people, and places for the better. And thank you all for listening to Talons of Hope. This podcast is proudly supported by the Mohammed bin Zayed Rapped Conservation Fund in Abu Dhabi, with production by Kieran Gadge of Vision Equip. Join us for episode 2, where we go deeper into Simon's field adventures, wild stories, remarkable rescues, bushcraft, and the untamed life become limited. Until then, this is your host, Muni of the Run. Keep your eyes in the skies and your hopes alive.