The Fat Bird, Ugly Dog Podcast Al Franke

In this episode I welcome Tim Williams to the show. Tim is the developer of the Falconry Journal App that he describes as a digital replacement for the pen and paper journals that many falconers use to maintain records associated with keeping falconry birds.After introducing himself Tim describes the app and highlights some of the features that are built into it. He also tells us what motivated him to develop the app. and provides some rationale for why a falconer may want to use the ap...

After talking to me about trapping of passage peregrine in Arkansas (Episode 24), Heath Garner returns to the show to talk about snipe-hawking. To set the stage for the conversation, Heath reminds us of his falconry background, the group of falconers that typically focus on snipe in Arkansas, and some similarities and differences of snipe hawking in Arkansas compared to the U.K. and Ireland.We then turn our attention to the snipe themselves, and Heath tells us why the Mississippi Alluvi...

In this episode my guest is Tony Wasley, President of the Wildlife Management Institute (WMI). We begin the episode talking about the Institute itself, what is does and when it was established. I am interested in the way that wildlife values are characterized, how they have changed, and how those changes in wildlife values potentially affect the future of hunting and hunters. Tony discusses the dichotomy between areas of focus for wildlife management agencies; the task of tag allocation...

In this Episode I am joined by John Organ, Chief Emeritus of the U.S. Geological Survey’s Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit Program, to discuss the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation. John begins by telling us about the people that were responsible for consolidating the model, He then describes the ecological and historical context that ultimately led to modern wildlife management. We go back to the late Pleistocene to provide a sense of what the m...

In this final episode of my three-part series discussing passage merlins with Jeremy Bradshaw, author of "The Passage Merlin", Jeremy shares his views on having a merlin share the comings and goings of one’s home, his views on weight management, and how he steps through the training sequence from hopping to fist to undertaking that first free flight, and ultimately to regular gamehawking. We also talk about "carrying", and taking advantage of the natural tendency for merlins to ca...

In this episode Jeremy Bradshaw author of the "The Passage Merlin" returns to me to talk about his love affair with the passage merlin. We begin this episode with Jeremy recollecting the events surrounding the first Merlin he trapped with, and for, fellow falconer and friend, Jeremy Roselle . He then tells us about trapping merlins in urban versus agricultural settings, including the various trap types, and his go-to favorite. He tells us about some hard-earned tips that have improved his tra...