The Archives of Falconry — Where Heritage Meets Conservation : With John Goodell

In this episode of Talons of Hope, we sit down with John Goodell, Executive Director and Chief Curator of the Archives of Falconry in Boise, Idaho, for a conversation about what it means to protect a living tradition.

The Archives of Falconry was founded in 1986 by the same falconers who helped launch modern raptor conservation. Today, it stands as a destination for anyone drawn to the ancient bond between humans and birds of prey. John walks us through the organization's bold chapter: becoming an independent nonprofit in 2021, leading a major renovation of its exhibition space, digitizing thousands of objects and rare texts, and acquiring the Karl-Heinz Gersmann Library, now considered the most complete falconry library in the world.

We explore how falconry shaped the recovery of the peregrine falcon, why UNESCO recognizes falconry as a living human heritage practiced for over 4,000 years, and how early falconry manuscripts contributed to the foundations of ornithology itself. John also shares the story behind publishing An Illustrated Mirror of Hawking, a stunning Japanese falconry work originally from 1863, now available in English for the first time.

This episode arrives just ahead of the Archives' Spring Rendezvous, the organization's largest annual gathering, where falconers from around the world come together to celebrate heritage, honor mentors, and invest in the future of conservation.

Whether you're a lifelong falconer or someone who's never seen a hawk on the fist, this conversation will change how you think about tradition, stewardship, and the quiet power of paying attention to the natural world.

With gratitude to the Mohamed bin Zayed Raptor Conservation Fund for supporting Talons of Hope, and to Kiran Ghadge for the partnership and belief that storytelling can move conservation forward.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:03

Welcome to another episode of Talons of Hope. I'm your host, Munir Varani, right here in the heart of Abu Dhabi. There are a few human traditions that don't just use nature. They listen to it. They memorize it. They carry it forward like a flame that can light someone else's path centuries later. Falconry is one of those traditions. It is a living heritage practiced across cultures for thousands of years. Where the outcome depends on attention, on restraint, on respect, and the wild dignity of a bird that will never truly belong to us. So today we're going to a very special place where that heritage is being protected with museum-level care and with a storyteller's heart. The Archives of Falconry in Boise, Idaho, located at the World Center for Birds of Prey. And I'm joined by my very good friend John Goodell, who's the executive director and chief curator. The archives was founded by Falconers who helped shape modern raptor conservation, and John has been guiding it through one of its most important eras: becoming independent, expanding public access, and putting collections online and renovating the space so that anyone, falconer or not, can walk in and feel the depth of the story. This conversation also comes at the perfect time, just ahead of the Archives Spring Rendezvous in Boise. A gathering that brings together hundreds of falconers together to celebrate heritage and honor those who came before and support what comes next. John, welcome to Talons of Hope.

SPEAKER_00 1:53

Thanks for having me, Maneira. Appreciate it.

SPEAKER_01 1:55

Let's start by walking us through what got you interested in falconry.

SPEAKER_00 2:01

Yeah, well, I I was uh, you know, early on in my life, I was exposed to uh avian science and I got into bird banding at a very young age, at sort of 15, 16. And through that connection, I ended up doing wildlife work, especially in the West, you know, seasonal field technician work, as a lot of people do when they're starting out. And I met uh in in one of those positions in Utah, I met some grad students of Clayton White. And, you know, I met them through professional work with songbirds and raptors, and they were in some cases grad students of Clayton White. And of course, as as you know, and to the listener that Clayton White was a or is, you know, a renowned raptor biologist, and especially with falcons, and particularly known for his early work with, you know, peregrine falcons, jir falcons, but but primarily known one of his his big achievements was uh describing that the the the tundra subspecies of the peregrine falcon, but really he's known as you know, this really uh productive scientist, raptor scientist with an incredible amount of research behind him. But but he had tracted raptor biologists in his program at BYU, and as was and many of them were you were falconers, uh, which is the case for a lot of the raptor science professionals of the 1970s, 80s, and even 90s. And so I met met them and and realized that this was a you know not just a a demonstration sort of hobby like you we think of with raptor educators or science or uh you know fairs, medieval fairs, but this was actually uh hunting uh art and uh I I took it from there.

SPEAKER_01 3:40

Excellent. So when someone hears archives of falconry, what do you hope that they picture and what do you hope that they feel in the first 10 seconds?

SPEAKER_00 3:51

Yeah, I mean that's in some ways that question brings up a bit of a a discussion about words and people's assumptions about words, and in many cases, we often thought of well, maybe we should call the archives the Institute of Falconry Museum and Archives, something like that, because archives are you know, the really for some people they think, well, that's probably a storage of papers and photographs, uh, you know, not necessarily a museum, not necessarily an exhibit wing. Um, and so it's a bit of a um the history of the archives, it was founded to be a reference collection for falconers and for journalists and for researchers and academics. And in reality, over the years, it's become an archives and a museum. It's become really a, I guess you could say, an institute, all-encompassing nature around Falconry heritage. Uh, but I hope when people when people hear about that, they, of course, many falconers, as you know, know about the archives and what it is. But but I hope that people are inspired to learn about, you know, this for which for them might be a quite obscure topic, but maybe an interesting topic that brings uh brings the the visitor back thousands of years into global human heritage and history. And uh, you know, falconry is of course, falconry history is more than just an exploration of the falconry itself, it's really a a tour through civilizations and and art and um you know a long-term interconnected passion for raptors, frankly.

SPEAKER_01 5:27

The mission of the archives of falconry is to collect, preserve, and interpret global falconry history, art, literature, and material culture. So in practice, what does the word interpret mean to you?

SPEAKER_00 5:41

Yeah, well, interpret is is you know, to help you know, help contextualize uh a topic, right? When you're an interpreter or you're you're fostering or promoting or directing interpretive programs or through exhibits, through whether it be talks in front of the public or or or books or what have you, you're we're trying to help the visitor, help the person that's engaged in Falk in this in our inst institution to have some context to to help um uh gain a deeper understanding and make connections through through, for example, our collection. Our a major sort of most, I guess you could say most important part of our work is is stewarding and and uh organizing and curating our collection and also using those collection items and stories in our in exhibits and things like that. So interpreting is really is really this attempt to bring some of this obscure topic, some of this uh ancient history and and and certainly contemporary history to the fore. And and but we really do it not so much through the mechanism of a typical museum focused on heritage of something that has ancient roots or certainly goes back a long way in terms of history, that you would typically in those, you know, a conventional museum is an academic curator and uh series of other trained professionals that are looking at something retrospectively, and they are they are indeed interpreting it to the best of their ability, but in many cases, and we can think of lots of museums like this, uh you're you're looking back at an ancient civilization, for example, and you have sort of a minimal amount of evidence uh and and uh other other uh you know other materials to go by to interpret what really was going on in that civilization. What are some of this important key stories to bring out and share? In our case, we have a a community of active Falconers around us, and they are totally it's a vibrant global community, so they are donating things to us and reaching out and emphasizing certain things that are important, certain things that may not be important. 98-99% of our collection is donated by active falconers. So we through their what they donate and what they do not donate is in a way curating what we have, and it's so it has this direct connection to to the community as opposed to an academic interpretation. And so we really are proud of that, and we think that's really important to uh to to what to our understanding of Falconry, that we have this interpretation all really through the lens of a community and a living community. Um, and that is that that dynamic with professional curators, I think, makes uh what we do all the more relevant.

SPEAKER_01 8:43

The archives was founded in 1986 by Falconers, who were also leaders in the Peregrine Fund. Tell us how did that origin shape what the archives values and what it refuses to forget?

SPEAKER_00 8:57

Yeah, I mean, I think it's a really fascinating topic because you know, I think what the founders of the, as as you know, many of your listeners may know, and certainly you're very well familiar with, is that the Peregrine Fund was was founded by Tom Cade and his three other co-founders. And that's Jim Weaver, and that's Frank Bond, and that's Bob Berry. And they were all falconers, they weren't all scientists, some of them were businessmen, and some of them were um, you know, sort of, I guess you could say, check of all trades, and an attorney, a who is also a legislator. So there's an interesting group that founded the Peregrine Fund all around a passion for falconry. And when they were initiating the recovery of the Peregrine Falcon and you know, starting in 1970 and moving forward, probably by the early 80s, and they knew they were this was a success early on. And they had the really the wherewithal to understand that not only is this a scientific story, but the story, a unique story of how a pri a private constituency or a you know of the public, a sort of public citizen science story of traditional people that are uh uh totally engrossed in a in a traditional hunting art, had engaged with a sign with the scientific community to uh collaborate and and to work towards the recovery of an endangered species. And that, of course, recovering endangered species was uh totally unprecedented. I mean, this was right on the heels of the Endangered Species Act itself. There were very few success stories. So here you had a species recovery success story, and you had one that had this unique uh really, you know, uh sort of recipe, including uh private citizens hunting people in the hunting community, uh joining forces with scientists, and that that in and of itself was an incredibly unique story. So they recognized that was important, and I think they also recognized that falconry uh which which goes back millennia in the old world, was of course in North America in in the Americas was a very new thing, and it started more or less in the 1930s and 40s, and so the history was all there for the taking. How many times have you ever, have any you know, academic or or curator had the opportunity to capture an entire history of something, a social movement, a a uh cultural heritage or what have you? How how often do you get the opportunity to capture the whole thing? Start from the beginning. And they recognize that as these folks that engaged with the peregrine fund to help you know, donate raptors, donate peregrines to them, uh captive breed and donate peregrines to captive breeding and release for the peregrine fund, assist with breeding techniques, assist with you know, um, and and developing some of the techniques that are based in falconry, like hacking. Uh you know, they really really was just an incredibly unique thing. So basically, you know, these folks just jumped in and and with the leadership of Ken Carney, um established the archives of the archives of American Falconing. And that was the initial focus. And really through through time and just a really just quite just a decade or more, the these folks realized that they had a collection that was essentially the largest global collection representing many other parts of the world. The first American falconers really only had European texts and British texts to to available to them to learn about falconry. So there was a naturally a large collection that was sort of international in its scope. And um, and it really, this this effort really went from being kind of this unique idea that you would have thought would have been already, you know, large museums existing in about falconry in Europe or even Asia uh or the you know a lot of other parts of the world to really okay, this was a this was by almost accident the largest collection in the world, or certainly the most complete collection in the world in terms of geography and and time.

SPEAKER_01 13:17

In uh 2021, I mean the archives was always part of the peregrine fund, but in 2021, the archives separated from the Peregrine Fund and became an independent nonprofit. Walk us through why did in why did this independence matter and what did it make possible that wasn't possible before?

SPEAKER_00 13:38

Yeah, I mean the the the mission of the peregrine fund is is of course rightfully focused on the conservation of raptors and around the world and and the archives was really fortunate to have the peregrine fund. The peregrine fund was sort of an incubator of this nonprofit supporting organization underneath the Peregrine Fund's umbrella, you know, operated by volunteer curators and and staff, uh and it was on a very lean budget, and that that went on for time and there wasn't a lot. There wasn't really an opportunity to do more than that, even though it was such an incredible collection. Um you know, that we were lucky to have the support we had early on, but at a certain point it it was recognized by current board members of the Peregrine Fund and and others that, you know, we just have different missions, right? And and that with having slightly different missions, there's uh, I think an opportunity and and I think a logic behind pursuing one's own fundraising and one's own strategic future and planning for the future in a way that recognizes um you know the interest of preserving Falconry heritage in all of its manifestations. And the Peregrine Fund, of course, has its own very critical mission that's based in science and and uh you know raptor education and and and in the conservation of global raptors. And so that's one logical, just basic, you know, I think observation. And so going forward, the archives was with a pledge from some supporters. The archives was able to, for the first time, really secure a professional team of staff and uh an endowment that was able allowed us to do that basically, and to go forward with some with you know some pretty important strategic uh objectives. And um, yeah, and it was it was a pivotal moment, but the whole thing was made possible by the Peregrine Fund's decades-long sport.

SPEAKER_01 15:38

So your timeline notes, you had a major digitization push in 2021 where you developed uh digital collections and virtual exhibits, right? So if a listener goes to your website tonight, what are the two virtual exhibits you'd recommend as a first-time experience and why those two in particular?

SPEAKER_00 16:00

Yeah, I would you recommend, you know, when you go to falconry.org and you'll see a tab that's uh virtual exhibits or it's exhibits, but it's essentially virtual exhibits. Um, I would recommend going to the timeline of falconry first. And that's, you know, if you look at timelines of falconry or any such summary of falconry history, this is a I think almost an infamous issue because so many of them are wildly varying in the in the factual nature of their content. And, you know, some of them assigning falconry more to medieval Europe, and some of them saying that falconry is, you know, started almost before civilization, and others saying Mongolia was the origin, others saying uh Asia was, and it's really all around it's it's all over the place a little bit. And I think the timeline that we sought to create was a much more academically sourced timeline and much more uh voluminous. I mean, we we have over, I think over 90 entries on that timeline. It's not the definitive history, right? Because we all know that falconry is over-emphasized in the sense of royalty of the castle and the manor, simply because the only very limited writing and evidence we have of falconry at certain certain locales of you know through antiquity is the people that wrote things down and carved things into stone, and often that is biased towards, of course, you know, um monarchs and and and uh landed gentry, people like that. Having said that, we sourced, we took months and months to source academic literature, and we really put a lot of effort into sourcing this information, and it takes the viewer through the best evidence we have in the earliest, uh, the earliest, best evidence we have all the way through across continents, um, across nations, and tries to not only, you know, document or or portray the as accurate um stories we can about Falbury history, but really choosing some of the pivotal moments, some of the some of the uh events that were significant, some of the books or manuscripts that were significant, some of the individuals. And it takes you through time, and of course, we get a lot more activity in the more contemporary years, starting in well, it's not really contemporary, but in the 19th, seven, you know, eighteenth, nineteenth century, when writing is just rapidly increasing through books, printing of books, and and things like that. But nevertheless, it also uh brings into the store into the picture this really important story that we sort of alluded to earlier about the founding of of uh the archives of how Raptor Science itself uh emerged sort of in this organic way out of the Falkring community and then took largely in the in the 20th century. So I really recommend it. It's a lot of work went into it. Uh it's not to say it's not flawed, but that's one. And then the second one is Widmeyer in India. This is a U.S. Falconer, a GI who went to uh was was sent to India to the India Burma campaign region with the U.S. Army in what was then the Air Force was under the Army as opposed to its own branch. And he was he was in um in that service as a public affairs officer, and he was an artist and he was a falconer, and he somehow, in a sort of miracle, which to this day seems implausible, convinced his superiors that he should, his public affairs mission for his two-year tour there should be falconry and to just go hawking with the locals. And so he did that for two years and he sketched uh these incredible, this incredible. We have a collection of over 120 pieces from Widmire here. There's sketches, some paintings, some mostly drawings, but also diary entries, manuscripts, photographs, really paints this a really rich picture of falconry in India, pre-partition, right? And and of course, at that time it was under the Raj, and there's all kinds of negative consequences uh connections there. But having said that, falconry, the context here is that falconry was more or less abolished in India after the partition and really had to almost restart from nothing in Pakistan later. So what you see in this his experience there is this artistic documentation of traditional falconry, the way that the Mughal Empire, right? The Akbar the Great and uh the his descendants practice falconry almost in an unbroken tradition for several, you know, several centuries at least in in in the India region.

SPEAKER_01 20:41

You described completing a major renovation of the public exhibition space. Uh let's talk a little bit about that, right? What what do you So we've just talked about your digital and virtual exhibits. Coming to your real space, what do you want visitors to experience physically in that space that they cannot get online?

SPEAKER_00 21:01

Yeah, I think that there's several things. I'll start with the first one that in 2020, through the support of the Ghubar Fund and the Raptor Conservation Fund, and and uh and of course uh you know the the the UAE government is that we were able to install the the Sheikh Zayed uh Falker Heritage Wing here at the archives, and it's a large exhibit uh that interprets Falker Heritage in the Arabian Peninsula and specifically the life and legacy of Sheikh Zayed himself. Um and and uh it it was just a beautiful example of professional museum, uh professional, cute professionally curated museum exhibit, and it uh told a rich story. And we next to that we had the room that people go through to get to that exhibit, and it was you know largely sort of an eclectic uh collection displays of items in our collection, but really. Really, it it sort of harkens back to the fact that the archives was not originally uh created to be an ex a public exhibit. It was really by request archives. So you would be, you would say, call the director and say, I'm writing a book on you know falconry in in uh say Eastern Europe, and could I come by and look at some materials? And then you set up an appointment and you visit. Over time, you know, the Peregrine Fund began to have public visitation on on their campus, and and it made sense to be able to show people from the public the what we had here. But that first room that you entered really was more an ad hoc sort of exhibit. And then you, of course, walk into this beautiful space and and his you know, his highness shakes ahead story. And we recognized that okay, we we need to do a better job of introducing people to the broad elements of falconry, introduction to falconry for the non-falconer. So when they enter the building in the beginning, they what is falconry? Where was it first uh discovered, or where you know, how old is falconry? Where was it practiced? What sort of birds are flown in falconry? What sort of quarry are are uh hunted in in falconry? What about falconry literature? And uh what about the material culture of falconry? What are the what what are hoods? Why are they what are they used for? And and these basic questions. So we created an exhibit that emphasized a lot of these things, but also the the aesthetic of falconry in the sense that we wanted the space to be inherently sort of uh maybe it's too grand of a word, but beautiful. We wanted it to use art and and really have a beautiful design that's just aesthetically really pleasing because that's this an essence of falconry in a way is the aesthetics of bird flight aesthetics of bird flight, um, and the adjacent areas around falconry of art and craft and um you know natural history, raptors in flight. And so that that exhibit was that that was essentially the purpose of that exhibit. And and so we installed that just about a year ago. And so now we feel like it's a much more balanced interpretive experience for the visitor to get this sort of introduction into this ancient art and then to be able to get a richer deep dive into the falconry heritage of the Arabian Peninsula. And for people in Boise and school groups and things like that, it's actually a a very unique cultural uh experience for a lot of people here, as you can imagine, who who have never been to the Arabian Peninsula and really don't understand uh some of not just the falconry elements, which is of course a super you know uh nuanced and and uncommon story, but really just the broader uh elements of of heritage in the Arabian Peninsula and Shaikh's idea himself as as a as a really important founder and leader. So um anyway, that that's kind of the attention there, and that people would come away just appreciating, you know, you go you go to the the interpretive um spaces in the peregrine fund and the world center for birds of prey, and you're going to mostly be exposed to the story of raptors through the language of science. And science, you know, some people gravitate to that, and some people absorb that and are attracted to that. And of course, others are really come, you know, connect with art and they connect with literature or they connect um with sort of uh, you know, essentially the beauty of nature, whatever, other other elements that draw them into raptors and the importance of birds of prey, um, and and people that are interested in history and culture. So I think what we offer is this counterbalance where you may not be drawn to one element of of of uh say raptor science in particular, but you may get there to the importance of raptors and and the the uh need to conserve them by connecting with these other elements, which are just across the parking lot from the interpretive center at the World Center.

SPEAKER_01 25:54

So tell us a bit more about this partnership uh engagement and connection with the Muhammad bin Zaid Raptor Conservation Fund and Abu Dhabi in particular, and why it is why is it so important?

SPEAKER_00 26:09

Yeah, I I would say that you know the the pivotal moment was really 1976. Um his Highness Sheikh Zay had sent a an invitation to Tom Cade, uh, who's the the founder of the Peregrine Fund, Kent Carney, who is the founder of the archives, and several other important uh Falconer leaders in the global falconry community. Um, you know, people like Roger Upton and and others that came from around the world. But Tom and Kent went there, and they also went there with Morley Nelson, who's a well-known falconer, passed away uh, but well-known Falconer in in the 20th century of the Western U.S. was a very close to we were very close to Tom Cade and Kent and others, and he was a videographer or a filmmaker basically, and he brought a 16 millimeter camera with him and uh and filmed their their uh time being you know, they were invited by uh his highness to go to the first falconry and raptor conservation festival, and it was intended to connect people around the world uh to the idea of falconry as a pretty important heritage and also to uh motivate and to bring together people on this topic of raptor conservation. And this was a vision of his highness Sheikh Zayed, and it was early on in the in the history of the Peregrine Fund and its operations, and so that was when Kent and Tom met uh His Highness and from there formed a you know a bond and a relationship. This was also at the same time, I believe it was the fourth or fifth anniversary of the UAE. So there was a parade uh celebrating the anniversary, and Morley Nelson got footage of that also, which is pretty remarkable. So we have we have some of that film, about 30 minutes of that film, and it's really amazing to look at. But anyway, point being is that this this was kind of an um this was an iconic moment of of two disparate civilizations really coming together over over the their shared values of raptors, falcon renewing raptor conservation. And from there, you know, the the relationship continued to flourish, and there were these little touch points of of uh uh you know sharing information about captive breeding or about veterinary science, people like um you know uh Riddle, Ken Riddle, who who went over there, as you know, to help put together a Falcon hospital. And there was um, you know, support for from from uh the Gabar Fund and others to support some of the Peregrine Fund's uh science scientific projects, like currently the Jira Falcon Project is a good example. So just a lot, it was the basis of the relationship, and over time it it formed, I think, just a great example of how Falconry the the shared connections that Falconry fosters and the shared values from very otherwise you know fairly disparate cultures.

SPEAKER_01 29:15

Let's let's talk a little bit about the Karl Heinz Gersman Library. I you know, it's obviously I I remember you telling me about it, and I could see the excitement in your eyes, right? So describe in your press release as over 1,500 titles and nearly 2,000 volumes. When you when you first saw it, what hit you as a curator and as a falconer?

SPEAKER_00 29:40

Yeah, I mean you know, the amazing thing about this collection is throughout most of the 20th century you saw a lot of the great collections, and this isn't just for falconry, right? This is across subject matters, a lot of the great private collections broken apart. And a lot of this had to do with, you know, maybe changing values in society, and there's less of an interest on these old antiquarian book collections um over time. And as we approach certainly the digital era, um, a lot of the people that put these collections together, you know, it might have been a prominent, passionate Falconer author, for example, someone like Harding, James Harding, who put together this incredible collection. And then, you know, he passes away, or and maybe the the collection, if it's lucky, gets moved into some organization that stewards it for some time. More often than not, the collections are are broken, broken apart. The patron or the the builder of the collection passes away, that the children are not interested, and if or the spouse, and eventually they're put to auction. So they're broken apart. And being broken apart is good for another collector, but uh, you know, in the as the world became more modernized and interconnected, and you can imagine these collections tended to spread out, not to not to come back together in a focused um collection. And so there's several examples of this. Janson is a French collector, um, Schwert, who's the really the famous collector of hunting uh literature, and uh, you know, many others. But point being, Karl-Heinz Gersman, a German engineer, auto-engineer, and very passionate, very experienced Falconer, began collecting books uh as he could in the about 45-50 years ago. And over time, he built really the the great Falcon collection in private hands. And the archives had, you could say, you know, in many ways, a the leading collection, but really a bit biased towards North America because the the builders of that who donated that right to the archives were mostly North American and some some British, but mostly North American. So here you had this private collector with an incredible uh international collection that sort of filled in all the holes that the of the archives didn't have. And and it was iconic in that sense, as I mentioned, that that that these great collections were just not that available. And he had the Carl Heinz, through his work as a collector, had a poignant understanding of this phenomenon of great collections being broken apart. I think he thought of his mortality, and I think he said, you know, I want to guarantee this collection will not be broken apart. And so that was a big uh reason and logic behind him contacting the archives. But that was what struck me is that you have this intact curated collection by a real expert, um, private citizen, and it it cr it it encompasses, you know, all manner of of cultures from from uh you know, certainly North America, but but it Great Britain, you know, Scandinavia, uh, you know, rest of Europe, Southern Europe, North Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, Central Asia, East Asia, on and on. It it was a lot of books in his collection are one of only one copy, two copies, three copies known in the world. Um and it just was he collected the best examples that he could. So it wasn't just that it was a very complete collection across you know cultural cultural differences. It was it was really, you know, the best best copies and the best conditions that were out there. And it was remarkable. And it, you know, we were something the archives would have never been able to do on its own. And certainly if we had attempted it, it would have taken 10 or 15 years and money we didn't have, you know, frankly.

SPEAKER_01 33:38

There's another piece of work uh that the archives published. Um uh I believe it's an illustrated mirror of Hulking. And I hope I I hope I pronounced this right, the Ihon Taka Kagami, first published in 1863, now reproduced with English translations. Walks walk us through why was it important to bring this specific work to mod modern audiences?

SPEAKER_00 34:05

Yeah, I would I would start with really uh uh a a paper that Karl Heinz published, and and and this is really kind of a a concept of his, this idea of what are the key, what are the most iconic falconry texts, and not just rarity, but but really their significance. And I'll just walk you through some of those and we'll we'll end with the with the ihan. Um, you know, one example, of course, is what we you know we we don't really know the there's not a lot of original copies of this, but the Gitrif. And the Gitrif is is a text from Arabia that's really a compilation of treatises that that really date to I think it's the eighth, ninth century in in the uh in the Abbasid um Empire. And and these books, this is some of the the earliest uh you know Falkrony texts out there. There's a lost treatise from China that that if it were available might be older, but we're not you know, not totally sure. But the the the Gittriff was was just of utmost value, and and you've of course heard of King Frederick, and and so centuries later, King Frederick was ordered by the Pope to go on a crusade, and he was very resistant, you know, a real character, and he was like, I'm not gonna do it, and he was excommunicated, and there's all this drama. The point being, he ended up doing the Sixth Crusade, which was of course known as the Bloodless Crusade, where he went down and uh you know negotiated some sort of peaceful resolution. But his one of his intentions was to attract falconers, Persian and Arab falconers to his court and help him uh, you know, expand his knowledge about falconry. And one of the outcomes of that was translating basically, I think, what is uh version of a Gitriff to Latin, which is known as the Moaman. And so that's a this incredibly iconic book that takes uh the knowledge of from Arabia and Persia, moving it sort of into the Western world and expanding uh, you know, a great deal of knowledge about falconry with that one book, including uh techniques like the use of the hood, which is so fundamental now. But that was a moment where the use of the hood was transmitted into the in you know the other eastern or sorry, western half of the continent in Europe. So that's that's an iconic book. And then King Frederick, you know, using what he had learned from the Moam and to a large degree in his own observations, wrote uh his famous treatise on you know really the the art of flying wild wild raptors, the art of falconry. And that, of course, is an iconic moment, and that's a reference used by falconers today. So that that's an example. There's another, if you go forward in time, it wasn't very long until Falconry went through a decline, and and you had falconry books that are iconic more for documenting a snapshot of falconry before it went into obsolescence, uh, a moment before uh you know industry and the use of the firearms sort of overcame falconry heritage in a way. And and so the Lou Hawking Club uh put together a book known as the Traite uh de Falconary, and the the which is really this considered one of the most uh and authors have said this, it's the most sort of amazing falconry book in the world. It's this elephant folio with these hand-colored lithographs, uh, huge book with the beautiful images of raptors. The artist is most of them are joke done by Joseph Wolfe. So another another example. Going to the east in Japan is the ihan Takagami is in that genre of capturing an ancient heritage in Japan, a falconry in Japan, that really kind of almost disappeared with the Meiji Restoration. So that as the listeners may know, this is this moment in Japanese history when it it sort of shifts into the industrial age. It goes from a uh a society really uh you know run by lords, samurai lords, as in a sense, feudal lords, to a society uh that's more of an emperor and an and uh and with more federal power and focused on development, developing industry. And so that that the the Meiji Restorations, I believe, 1868, if I'm not mistaken, and the the Ihon was was put together. This this this artistic picture book was created by Kiyosai, uh Kawanabi Kiyosai, a very famous artist in uh 1863, and there's subsequent editions, but it he was commissioned by a one of these samurai feudal lords in the Matsu, I believe it was the Matsu region, to uh to he was dying. He was in the last year of his life. So here you can imagine the samurai lord, the last of his line. He's sick, he's looking at this huge upheaval and shift in his society, recognizing that falconry is disappearing. And he was himself the holder of the largest falconry library in Japan, which I think is held in a museum now, still is. And he commissions Kiosai uh to come to his his uh essentially castle and document as much as he can of falconry and the falconry equipment and and the stories of falconry, etc. Now, Kawanabe Kiyosai is this up-and-coming artist in that time in Japan and is internationally famous now. But and at the time he was really respected for his ability to um sort of restore shrines and temples with the traditional depictions of uh famous lords and other characters in Japanese history. And so he gained a following within the samurai class, and he probably why he was commissioned. But he what the Ihan is is a picture book. Um, and it's really means an illustr the illustrated mirror of Hawking. And in like all things in you know, ancient Japan and and many of the the I guess you could say the stories and the the poetry and etc. is is dual meaning. So the mirror of Hawking is in a sense like literally a picture book of Hawking, but it's also a reflect like the reflections upon Hawking, you know, and it has multiple meanings, but it's a series of plates, which are woodcut block prints that are that he created, and it it's not just showing this incredibly detailed picture of the traditional uh falconry um under the Tokugawa era. It's like many things that artists would do in Japan, they were not heralded and praised for their total novel approach to art, right? One of the biggest and most important elements of being a successful artist in Japan at that time would be to master the duplication of how that famous ancient emperor was depicted by the artist five centuries earlier or more. And then so your ability to really replicate that style was very um very important. And so the ihan is not just Tokugawa sort of 19th century falconry as practiced in Japan. It was the representation of it through centuries, going back to the three to 300 uh AD, essentially, uh when Falcon was first introduced to Japan by a Korean noble. And so the ihan takes you through that story, uh, which so it's got all these layers to it. Uh and people that are, you know, people that are really into Japanese art, Kiosai is famous. And even though no very few people that really know Kiosai know anything about the ihan, whereas in the Falcony community, it's kind of an unknown thing. So within the book, it's mostly picture pictures. It's it's uh, you know, uh essentially images of um artwork of of of falconry in Japan and the characters and the birds, mostly gosh. It does have some text. Some of the text is captions, some of it is is poems. And so the problem that that the falconry community had is that two things, and even people that that could read Japanese is that it was sort of an old form of Japanese um writing that was more or less lost or more or less discarded after after World War II, or a shift in kind of the you know, the alpha the essentially the written language. So there's that, but there's also the fact that most Falconers that didn't speak or write Japanese just didn't know what it meant. And and uh had never been translated before, although there were many attempts. And so try to make the story a little shorter. It's it's a it's an epic story, but but Karl Heinz Gersman was able to uh get or a uh linguist or someone who who knows Japanese and and German and to translate the the the on for the first time to German. And then when we joined forces and to to publish this this book, which Karl Heinz had intended to do initially, we brought in a couple other academics, um Kodo Sadamura, who's a leading scholar on uh Kiosai at the British Museum, and Elaine Briot, who's a French uh falconer, uh, you know, inter very interested in in Japanese falconic culture and history, and and several others academics. And we we basically did the best we could to to create this English translation, and it is uh yeah, we're proud of it. And so in the book that we published is a rep essentially a um, you know, it's a reprint of of the ihan, but it's also has uh this translation in the margins to English. And then in the in the the front of the book, um in the western front of the books, we should say it has several contemporary chapters on interpreting elements of the ihan, Takagami and Kiasai. Himself, but you still start the book from its its you know natural place, which is on the eastern side. So you start the book uh from one direction, uh, which is the eastern right to left direction, and then the introductory chapters are left to right.

SPEAKER_01 44:16

Um we're gonna move straight to your spring rendezvous. Uh, and in the interest of time, uh John, the your your spring rendezvous theme is explicitly centered around conservation legacy. What do you want a young falconer or a curious non-falconer to walk away understanding about falconry's role in rapt conservation?

SPEAKER_00 44:40

Yeah, I mean the the archives, um, you know, initially the rendezvous was started to really celebrate some people that had passed in the falconing community, and they were inducted into our wall of our wall of remembrance. And while we still do that, we've expanded the event um to try to uh also attract you know falconers of all ages and and you know origins. And so we we really our goal there is to celebrate falconry heritage and to you know get get falconers of all ages from all regions just to enjoy falconry heritage without the trappings of a typical field meet. Falconers come together and they come together with birds and their dogs. It's stressful. You want to get your bird flown, everybody's crammed into your truck, or you're in a hotel room, and you know, there's a real kind of um, I guess you could say that the clock's ticking and you're you want to get out there and fly, and socializing can become a little tr a little troublesome sometimes. So this is an opportunity for for falconers to just purely celebrate and enjoy each other's company and to really think about and I think gain maybe a little bit more appreciation of the value of this heritage outside of their day-to-day kind of just in the moment practice of falconry in their life. And so I think it helps folks appreciate the ancient legacy of falconry. It helps people approach the different elements of craft and art and all the things we discussed before.

SPEAKER_01 46:04

What can people expect at this year's event that will completely blow their socks off?

SPEAKER_00 46:11

Well, we're having um, you know, several things going on. Um, Helen McDonald is screening, uh hosting a screening of H is for Hawk, which was of course a film adaptation of the book. And so she'll be there to introduce the film and answer questions. And um, we are going to have a speaker session. The theme of the rendezvous is the um the grand tradition of apprenticeship. And so that's going back to your earlier question, a major take-home of this particular year's event is to really think about, appreciate, you know, brainstorm the value of this ancient, ancient mentor-apprentice relationship that has propelled Falconry through millennia, literally. And so people who are mentors and apprentices who have been in both roles can are gonna be presenting on that and their experiences in one or both roles over time. And then we're going to have a reception here. There's this famous guy that is going to be showing up uh screening a film called Sacred Skies and Munir Varani. So we're looking forward to your presentation and uh or your screening of your short film, which everyone's looking forward to. And then we're up, we'll have, of course, a banquet, keynote, auction raffle, uh, and and more. So there's tours of the archives and of the World Center for Birds of Prey, and uh should be fun.

SPEAKER_01 47:35

I've really enjoyed those archive events, rendezvous events, and I'm I'm really excited to be there in a couple of weeks' time. Uh John, last question. Um, in very few words, if you could fast forward 10 years from now, what would success look like for the archives? More objects, more access, more scholarships, more public trust, more conservation impact, or something else entirely.

SPEAKER_00 48:00

Yeah, I mean, I think all those all those things, um, especially just doing a better job of you know being able to show off more of our collection, to maybe add an exhibit wing or two to to rotate, especially artwork. You know, we'd love to have more, more wall space for our. I would say over all of that, I think a major goal is to make is to help introduce falconry's value to society, to people at you know, to the public at large. In other words, we all think it's cool. Falconers think it's great because it's it's exciting, it's dramatic, it's beautiful, it's an all-engrossing uh way of life. But what's the big picture? Why is Falconry important? Why has it been so important? What's the value of this thing to society? And and I think some of the answers to that include, you know, it's it's inspiration to art, but but of course, it's inspiration and to you know to to to conservation and and really helping, I think people kind of connect to falconry in some way, really have a deeper understanding of raptors, they have a deeper appreciation, it's more intuitive that raptors uh are are inherently intrinsically valuable and should be protected. And so I think looking at those higher, higher level um elements of falconry is I think a major, I think is a goal of ours to really help people connect to to what we do, even if they're not in the falconry community per se.

SPEAKER_01 49:28

John, thank you for your time, and I wish you and the archives of Falconry a fantastic rendezvous ahead.

SPEAKER_00 49:34

Yeah, thanks, Reneer. We'll look forward to seeing again.

SPEAKER_01 49:37

If you're listening to this podcast before the spring rendezvous, I hope you will consider making the trip to Boise, or at least spending time exploring what the archives of Falconry has made available online. The door is open and the invitation is real. And to everyone supporting this work behind the scenes, thank you with deep gratitude to the Mohammed bin Zayed Wrapped Conservation Fund in Abu Dhabi for supporting Talons of Hope, and thanks to you, Kieran Gardge, for your support, your partnership, and the steady belief that storytelling can move conservation forward. From all of us here at Talons of Hope, keep looking up, keep making space for wilderness, and keep building the kind of heritage that gives the future something to stand out.