Meet Our Raptor Ambassadors

Blackland Prairie Raptor Center’s education birds of prey are the highlight of our outreach programming. Their purpose is to inspire our audiences to think about and actively participate in helping preserve raptors and the environment for generations to come.

Though these education ambassadors have been given names, we must respect them as wild animals. In many cases these birds will be with us for many years, and since we have more than one bird per species, we attempt to give them names that are derived from a bird’s actions or a reference to the natural history of that species. As you read their stories, remember that these birds began their lives as wild creatures and came to us after humans had a negative impact on them. It must be stressed that the birds of Blackland Prairie Raptor Center are and always will remain wild birds of prey, not pets.

All of our raptor ambassadors have come to BPRC with circumstances that make them non-releasable. Due to their injuries or conditions, they would not be able to survive on their own in the wild. They have become the ambassadors for all wild birds of prey by educating the public about the issues concerning their future.

*Human Imprint

Human imprinting occurs when people take a bird out of the wild within days or weeks after hatching, and care for it. Most think they are saving a bird’s life when they take it home and feed it, but unknown to them, they can cause a life-long problem. A young bird becomes imprinted on whomever is feeding it. Many don’t realize that imprinting occurs, at all, and that it happens in the first few weeks of a bird’s life, which is the critical learning period of brain development. When people feed baby birds, the bird learns that people are its sole food source. Imprinting is a permanent, non-reversible type of mental injury. Imprinted raptors cannot be returned to the wild because they don’t fear humans, they cannot hunt for themselves, and they cannot recognize predators or dangers in the wild. These are all things they must learn from their bird parents in order to survive. Human imprinting occurs more often than it should, because most people don’t know about it. This is why BPRC created the Nest is Best campaign. To learn more, please visit our rehab page.

***Disclaimer: It is illegal to take in and raise any native bird species in the United States. Federal and state government permits are required to care for these birds.