Our summer vacation plans have included a week at Ocean City, NJ. One of the more unusual aspects of Ocean City is the presence of falcons and their trainers along the boardwalk. Seagulls had become a problem. They would swoop in and grab a person’s food while they were eating. This is a problem for adults and terrifying for little kids.
If you want to get rid of seagulls, unleash some falcons who will attack them. Whoever manages the boardwalk, hired a firm that deploys falcons. A falcon handler (below) walks along the 2.5 mile boardwalk and releases birds of prey from time to time.
Some of the members of our party watched a falcon attack a seagull. I missed it but it sounds like it was very exciting.
Should you decide that you want to rent some falcons, you should contact East Coast Falcons. They charge Ocean City $250,000 per season and have five falcons and an owl that they can deploy.
Falconry has its origins in the Middle East about 5,000 years ago. And it is still very much a part of the culture.
When I visited Qatar (where the falcon is the national bird) in 2023, I toured Falcon Souq which is a big complex where you can buy falcons and all kinds of falcon accessories (the picture above shows falcons that you can buy). The Souq even has a falcon hospital. Next to the Falcon Souq, was a place where you could buy a camel (see below).
If you decide you want to buy a falcon and get into falconry, you can expect to pay $300 to $2,000 for a falcon and about $3,000/year in food, vet, shelter and equipment.
If you decide you want to buy a camel, you can expect to pay $10,000 for the camel and $2,000 annually to care for your camel. You should remember that camels can live 40 to 50 years, so you are stuck with your camel for a long time.
I suspect that you did not know that the US Army had a Camel Corp from 1856-1866 (picture below)
The camel did better than horses and mules in the tough, hot conditions of the southwest. But the Corp was disbanded when its main proponent, Jefferson Davis (who was the US Secretary of War when the Corp was formed) became the president of the Confederacy. It also turns out that soldiers, who knew how to manage horses and mules, struggled to manage camels.
I think I’ll stick with cats. They are less expensive than camels and less terrifying than a falcon.