The Raptor Research Experiment at Saanichton, British Columbia

A continuing series of experiments aimed at the domestication of the Peregrine was ben in 1965 by a team of cooperators programreed under the Raptor Research Foundation.Even with the initial pair the entire background of both birds is known and documented.Also, it is the first time where a continuing supply of young birds of known origin and background are being raised and conditioned for replacements and the setting up of new pairs at widely-separated points across the continent.The pair with which this paper is concerned, therefore, represents but the first nestings by the first pair that has been assigned to, and as much as possible conditioned for, a continuing series of experiments.In this case an obvious pair-bond had been formed and inasmuch as the female produced her first set of eggs by the third year, some of the conditioning techniques that were used should be recorded. The pair ofPeregrines now under discussion consisted of two of eight yomg of the race pealei.taken from the east side of Moresby Island of the Queen Charlotte Islands group in June of 1963 Four males and four females were taken.The females were originally obtained specifically to be trained to attack large gulls in an experiment undertaken for the National Research Council of Canada.Nevertheless, during their first autumn and winter, two of the males were trained and kept with the four females much of the time.While kept leashed to blocks in the traditional manner, which of course does not permit any physical contact between individuals, much of the time they were either in the same room or in close proximity to one another on the lawn-perches.During the two seasons that the four females were flown to gulls, three of them met with accidents and were either killed or otherwise lost.The flights to gulls were terminated at the end of March, 1965o At this time the one remaining female was assigned to my care for the Raptor Research Foundation domestic reproduction experiments.This falcon then, and her mate, both had a very similar and well-documented background.Both had been lure-trained from July to September of 1963o The female had then been flown to gulls from September 1963 until April 1964.The male had been ill from an unknown cause during part of this time, from about September until late January, but had recovered and was being flown to domestic pigeons from January 1963 until March of 1964.The initial training of both birds took place over a hundred-acre saltmarsh some twelve miles north of Victoria, British Columbia.The flights to gulls by the female occurred at random over a much larger area, but never more than eight miles from the original training area.Due to considerable damage to the flight feathers in the numerous encounters with gulls, the female of the pair was not flown during her first moult, and was accordingly not flown from early April until mid-July.The male however was flown to lure and pigeons over the training area through the first moult.After the 15th of July, and before the flights to gulls were again resumed, the two birds were flown together as a pair for a few times but the female proved to be intolerant of the male in

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