We had a friend who was a falconer. He also worked with Cornell U. to help restore some varieties threatened by extinction by raising them. Didn't learn a lot about that aspect, except that it was very complicated, from getting the birds to mate, to raising the young and teaching them to hunt and then to acclimate them to living in the wild before turning them loose.
He brought various birds out here (to western SD from his home along the eastern border of the state) to hunt grouse, which he believed to be the most difficult of prey for them. Our grouse population wasn't great at the time, and he used more wild ducks than grouse, even 'rescuing' one from his hawk for me to cook.
One night, he didn't return home, as he had warned us might happen. The bird he was training followed some other birds to a shelter belt and refused to come to him, so he spent the night in his car waiting for it to come back, which it did shortly after daylight. He was pretty old at the time, so it had to be very tiring for him. He was extremely dedicated to those birds. His name was Don Hunter. I think hewas a farmer who also fed cattle before he retired to raising the birds. He died several years ago. We do miss him a lot, tho we didn't see him often.
mrj