Documents

This brief document is part of the actual Constitution of IAF and it can be used as a strategic starting point for your committee when they work on your own registration documents. You should add other details that are especially relevant to your country and might like to include such things as a code of conduct and details of how the club is to be administered, election of officers etc. It should be in your own language and drafted in accordance with your nations traditions.

The International Association for Falconry and Protection of Birds of Prey (IAF) has strong views on the animal welfare of both the falconry bird and its prey. Therefore these guidelines have been approved by the Assembly of Delegates at the 45th AGM at Doha Qatar in January 2014. These guidelines are suitable for dealing with hunting birds that fly free in the hunting season and, also, in part for the rehabilitation of free ranging birds found injured or debilitated.

IAF, working together with specialists from the finance sector and conservationists, have initiated a document on preventing birdelectrocution.

This document is a short guidance aimed at non specialists who have crucial impact on the construction and reconstruction of medium voltage lines.

It is for people working in the financial sector (especially banks), government agencies responsible for planning and financing new distribution lines, and all sectors where power lines are used, as well as conservationists and anyone interested in this problem.

If you have any questions, please contact us at electrocution@iaf.org

In the discussion on re-registration of the effective herbicide, glyphosate, one significant effect has not, according to our opinion, been adequately considered: Glyphosate destroys all plant species, the basis of our insect world and all organisms that are dependent on the food chains of these organisms. We are on the way to a silent spring because the richness of species that have developed along-side agriculture for millennia risks being widely destroyed by increasing use of this herbicide.

Falconry is a unique partnership between human and predatory bird that has a cultural history going back thousands of years. Falconry is recognised under the EU Birds Directive. Despite a modern erosion of human links with our natural environment and wild inhabitants of these places, Falconry persists to this day throughout the world, and IAF currently has affiliations from 60 countries and links to Falconers in even more countries.

The International Association for Falconry and the Conservation of Birds of Prey (IAF) notes with dismay and outrage that Diclofenac (a Non-Steroidal Anti-inflammatory Drug used for the treatment of pain and inflammation) is available for veterinary use in Member States of the European Union including Italy and Spain.

This drug is incredibly toxic to vultures, even in very small quantities, and fatal poisoning can result when vultures consume the carcasses of animals treated, before their death, with Diclofenac.

The IAF is a significant international conservation organization and is strongly supportive of sustainable use as an essential conservation tool as envisaged by the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). As such, the IAF holds strong views regarding the illegal trade in wildlife and issues the following statement

We call on the Secretariat and Parties to promote a ban on the use of poisons to control rodents, associated with agricultural practice in the Saker Falcon breeding range, as this is in contradiction with efforts to protect and conserve this species. We call the Secretariat and Parties to strengthen as soon as possible the position on the veterinary use of Diclofenac and to ban its production and use. Similarly we wish to express our serious concern on the widespread use of Neonicotinoid poisons in agriculture and ask the Secretariat and Parties to address this issue.

Prior to the 10th Congress of the Parties of the Convention on Migratory Species, in Bergen, Norway, the International Association for Falconry and the Conservation of Birds of Prey (IAF), made contact with all delegates to this conference, by letter, regarding the conservation of the Saker Falcon. The history behind this letter is as follows.

In this side event, the following three presentations were provided to introduce falconry, falconer’s activities and a basic understanding of hunting. The keynote speech was presented by Dan Cecchini, Jr (Advisory Council, Board Member & US Delegate of IAF). Birds of prey rehabilitation work was presented by Sang-hyun Park (Korean Delegate of IAF). Hunting – being part of nature was presented by Tamás Marghescu (Director General of CIC).

The IAF contributed to the formulation of Principle 5 of the Code of Conduct for Hunting and Invasive Alien Species, the final draft of which was released by the Bern Convention in August 2013. Since the release of this document, the IAF has taken steps to inform falconers of the content of this document and to implement the proposals contained there-in.

The history of modern falconry has, in many ways been written by the fortunes of the Peregrine Falcon. This species is almost synonymous with falconry, certainly Western falconry. Fluctuations in the populations of this resilient and widespread species over the past 60 years and the responses to these fluctuations have determined the practice of modern falconry, the attitudes of others to falconry and, even, the establishment and growth of the IAF. The consideration of down-listing of the Peregrine falcon at the CITES CoP 17 in Johannesburg this year can be seen as bringing this story in full cycle.

The history of modern falconry has, in many ways been written by the fortunes of the Peregrine Falcon. This species is almost synonymous with falconry, certainly Western falconry. Fluctuations in the populations of this resilient and widespread species over the past 60 years and the responses to these fluctuations have determined the practice of modern falconry, the attitudes of others to falconry and, even, the establishment and growth of the IAF. The consideration of down-listing of the Peregrine falcon at the CITES CoP 17 in Johannesburg this year can be seen as bringing this story in full cycle.

The history of modern falconry has, in many ways been written by the fortunes of the Peregrine Falcon. This species is almost synonymous with falconry, certainly Western falconry. Fluctuations in the populations of this resilient and widespread species over the past 60 years and the responses to these fluctuations have determined the practice of modern falconry, the attitudes of others to falconry and, even, the establishment and growth of the IAF. The consideration of down-listing of the Peregrine falcon at the CITES CoP 17 in Johannesburg this year can be seen as bringing this story in full cycle.