Maybe you’ve heard of falconry, the practice of training birds of prey to catch small animals and bring them back to human handlers. Personally, I associate them with medieval Europe. However, the International Association for Falconry and Conservation of Birds of Prey informs me that falconry was already popular in Mongolia 3000 years ago, and it’s still practiced in contemporary central Asia. And don’t go assuming that “falconry” is only for falcons, because I got on this track after reading about Makpal Abdrazakova, the only woman in Kazakstan who has been trained as a berkutchi, or golden eagle hunter.

Eat your heart out, Augie March, because the berkutchis use their eagles to hunt corsac foxes, Saiga antelope, goitered gazelles, and even wolves. Iguanas would not be a problem for these birds, which have a wingspan over six feet wide, but I get the impression that rabbits and foxes are the main targets.

 

The Soviets discouraged berkutchi hunting, according to a BBC article, on the grounds that it was an elitist sport. Like many other aspects of traditional culture in the Former Soviet Union, interest in berkutchis has grown strongly since the 1990s, and there are berkutchis in Kazakstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Mongolia.

 

As you might guess, it’s a fertile topic for photoessays. Travel website matadaor network has a lovely one under the title Hanging with eaglehunters in western Mongolia. The photogalleries at eaglefalconer.com include a variety of berkutchis and their eagles in Central Asia. Mosaic of the steppes has a great photoset by Konstantin Vishnichenko, and here’s a great big set from alldayplus.ru too. There’s plenty of video available on the youtubes, too – use berkutchi or беркутчи (same thing, but in Cyrillic) for a search term.

As the only lady involved, particularly as a young and lovely one, Makpal has been featured a number of places on the interwebs. I originally saw her on pinterest , in a photo that seems to have come from a blogpost by a Fullbright scholar living in Kyrgyzstan and studying berkutchis.  (The author of that post can be found on Reddit – IAmAn Expert in Kazakh eagle hunting. AMA.) She’s also been mentioned on Salon.com, in a Women’s Day photoshoot with Reuters (also available with video!) and in lovely pictures available on flickr and lensart.ru. She may be the first contemporary woman berkutchi, but a more recent article (in Russian) shows that she won’t be the last – her father, Marat Abdrazakov, has recently started training three new girls, ages 15, 12, and 8. Why isn’t Makpal teaching them? She’s pursuing a career as a lawyer.

 

I love the whole idea of eagle hunting, even though the video of the actual hunting makes me a little sad. (I think foxes are cute – I don’t really want to see them fleeing from a giant bird which is going to gouge their eyes out) As I continue building up the world of Isobel the Bear-Eater, I have a couple ideas of how to work berkutchis into my plot. Whether they are good or evil, or (most likely) a little of both, though, I’m not sure yet. They won’t show up until the end of book 2, at the earliest, so I better get back to it and finish up book one!