Actually, the gyr/pere/merlin is the opposite of inbreeding. Inbreeding is the mating of closely related organisms like siblings or child to parent etc. This is rather out-crossing- breeding an organism to something more distantly related than by random chance (such as outside of the species). Sorry for the textbook start, but this is sort of related to what I research :). Now on to your questions. Let me warn you now I have a tendency to drone on and on about some things- falconry and natural selection/speciation are both pet topics of mine so a combination of the 2 is really exciting. Hopefully I don't bore you and actually answer the questions before getting sidetracked.
I do not feel that loosing these birds is an issue- in the US by law hybrids mus be imprinted or sterilized. If its been surgically sterilized there there is obviously no chance of reproduction so that's one solution. Imprinting however is a little more tricky. In theory birds that are truly imprinted will not court or mate with other birds, instead they recognize humans as being the same as them and therefore court whomever imprinted them. This is not in reality always the case. I have heard of imprinted birds (and also birds that are imprinted but also raised around other birds or variations of that theme) court and mate with birds. So this has the potential for spreading hybrid genes. I do not thing that this is a big problem though based on the limited numbers of hybrids being flow (and lost) compared to the breeding population of the falcons in question. So lets say one bird (we'll say a gyr x peregrine) pairs up with a peregrine and successfully raises 4 young that (so they're 3/4 peregrine and 1/4 gyr). Of those 4, odds are only 1 will survive to sexual maturity and lets say it mates with a peregrine and it too raises 4 young (which are 7/8 pere and 1/8 gyr). By this point I believe you have diluted the gyr enough that there are very few gyr characteristics (if any) in the young. Hybrids occur naturally- off hand I can think of a few different instances of pere x prairie hybrids, along with a Swanson's x gray hawk, and also a Swanson's x red tailed hawk.
Next, I don't really think they would make the gene pool weaker. Natural selection would be in place for hybrids just like any other bird so if it can't cut it in the wild feeding itself and staying away from predators it would get killed and be removed from the gene pool. And actually the point of hybrids is that they have the best characters from the species in question. So while I do not thing the wild peregrine needs to be improved in any way (believe me if given the chance I'd be flying a passage pere right now) I don't believe a hybrid is really an inferior bird. For example, when restoring the peregrine falcon the P-fund used various subspecies of pere for their breeding stock. Part of the rational I have heard for this is that by doing so they put a variety of genes in the population and then let natural selection work out which of those genes were the best for the niche available.
As far as telemetry I have a Marshall Micro. They run about 250 bucks. My receiver is a modified HAM radio (I'm a HAM radio operator also, so I can have and use those) so that too was a couple hundred bucks. For a nice receiver you'll spend 500 or so bucks easy.
Hope this helps, I could go on and on about this, so if you want another round of torture let me know and I can go into species concepts and the fact that according to some abunch of the falcons should be a single species.
therese
dear Theresa
In God we dwell and in His Name we write these lines to you.
sat nam
we saw your post in the hunting hawks email group and are always looking for falconers that never tire of talking about falconry!
You had mentioned that you had a gyr/peregrine/Merlin
what is your opinion on all of this inbreeding of falcons? our first sponsor back in 1987 is very much against it as he feels that when these birds are lost and end up in the wild that they are messing up the natural gene pool of wild falcons as they will ultimately mate with wild falcon and make the gene pool weaker which offsets the natural balance of life, kind of like gmos, (genetically modified organisms) which we try to avoid as much as possible. what is your opinion of this?
we look forward to hearing from you. Also it was interesting to hear that you have made so much of your equipment except bells and telemetry. what kind of telemetry did you purchase? we have heard the least expensive is the r10 unit receiver for under $300.00 on ebay.
god bless you
Peace To All, Life To All, Love To All
Sat Nam
Humbly Yours,
Guru Jiwan Singh & Sadhana Kaur Khalsa
No comments:
Post a Comment