Steppe Wisdom, Prairie Hope
Lauren McGough
United States of America
Before Lauren McGough sees a hare darting across the prairies of Kansas – or over the steppe of Western Mongolia – she feels its presence through the golden eagle perched on her glove.
“The eagle has better vision than you and quicker reactions, and it’s almost like you get to borrow her superior senses,” says Lauren, who specialises in hunting with these awe-inspiring birds. “When my eagle sees something, I can feel it in her feet. She’s like a coiled spring, focused and ready to launch.”
While most falconers fly their birds at smaller prey like rabbits or squirrels, a golden eagle will naturally hunt the bigger, heavier, fleet-footed hare. (This is far from their limit – in Outdoor Pastimes of an American Hunter, Theodore Roosevelt tells the story of a golden eagle swooping at a year-old elk.)
For Lauren and her eagles – Lyra and Link – the hunt is a team effort. “You’re orchestrating the variables in this ancient predator-prey interaction,” she says. “An eagle can’t just catch any hare, anywhere. You want a certain amount of cover, so I like to find an area with tall grass. The hares can hide in it, but it’s open enough that the eagle has a real shot. And the wind is really important, because hares can run faster upwind than an eagle can fly.”
With focused handling and careful flushing, the golden eagle often prevails. “If you can tip the variables to the eagle’s advantage, you’re in for something really incredible,” says Lauren
“Once the hare flushes and the eagle goes, it’s like the die has been cast and I just have to watch it all play out in front of me. I never know what’s going to happen and it’s almost like time will slow down, because these two creatures that have evolved together are just so perfectly matched to countermanoeuvre one another.”
Learning the ways of Kazakh eagle falconry
Before the woman with the 9lb golden eagle on her arm, there was a girl fascinated with her first red-tailed hawk, newly captured from the American wilderness.
“I feel like I was born a falconer, although I’m not sure that anyone is born a good falconer,” says Lauren. “I started with my first bird when I was fourteen – I had never been hunting or trained an animal before, but I flew that red-tailed hawk throughout high school, and then flew a peregrine falcon and started learning to hunt with eagles while studying abroad at the University of Glasgow.”
Inspired by the writings of Stephen Bodio, who was among the first western falconers to document eagle falconers in post-soviet central Asia, Lauren resolved to aim higher still. “When I graduated there was a program – the Fulbright program – where you do an independent research project in another country for a year, with a unique cultural element,” she says. “I thought: okay, Mongolia.”
Her application was accepted, and Lauren soon found herself living under the tutelage of a berkutchi master hunter, as the guest of a semi-nomadic Kazakh community roving with eagles on the Mongolian steppe. “The knowledge of eagles was really the only shared language we had, because it’s the same eagle species that’s most commonly flown in the US, and in Europe where I started learning about eagle falconry: the golden eagle,” she says.
Much of Lauren’s education with the berkutchi was spent on horseback, hunting foxes across grasslands and mountain slopes – but the connection with her eagle was woven through the everyday. “One of the most memorable catches that we had was when my eagle caught a fox that was running through a sheep herd,” says Lauren. “The eagle plainly ignored the sheep and caught the fox in the middle of them all. They blend into the way of life.”
Life of a master hunter
Berkutchi have flown golden eagles across the steppes for over a thousand years, and their falconry culture has been recognised as an example of living human heritage by UNESCO. For Lauren, this human story proved just as captivating as eagle falconry itself.
“Though I was very eagle-obsessed to start with, I developed a fascination with all the other aspects of life, which is why I later did my PhD in anthropology,” she says. “There’s very little personal space or time, and there’s a communal approach to eagles and other aspects of life. The people live in gers – known as ‘yurts’ in Russian – in the summer and fall, then in the winter and spring they live in these more permanent, adobe houses.
“There’s a juxtaposition in their society where something might seem very functional, but it’s subtly blinged up. The outside of a yurt can look austere, but sometimes you’ll go inside and there’s a gorgeous tapestry that has been painstakingly made.”
As a young westerner raised in an individualistic culture, Lauren found the Berkutchi’s communal way of life enlightening. “These nomadic herders get everything they need from their animal relationships – with horses, goats, sheep, yaks, camels and eagles,” she says.
“It’s a very harsh environment, and every so often there’s a terrible winter where all of a family’s livestock could die. If a blizzard killed off most of your herd, then you would know that your extended family group would help – this guy will give you two goats, that guy will give you three, and you can rebuild.”
Teammate, rebel, sprinter, thriller
Lauren has continued to fly eagles – while also working in anthropology and conservation – ever since her time with the berkutchi in the late '00s and early 2010s. The many years of living closely with these birds have taught her that no two are alike.
“They are as individual as people are – and when you go and trap an eagle, you never know what you’re going to get,” she says. “With Lyra, she’s never tried to grab me once, which is rare as there’s usually a misunderstanding at some point. We’re a team, and she’s excited to go out hunting with me. We’ve moved beyond food as motivation and she’s very bonded to me – I have no fear of losing her.”
Lauren’s male eagle, Link, was trapped at around the same time. “He’s pretty much Lyra’s opposite,” says Lauren. “We have caught some hares together, but he doesn’t like me. I'm planning to release him back to the wild in late spring. I learned a lot from him, but he'll be happier on his own, securing a territory and a mate back in the wild.”
That’s something golden eagles do tend to have in common: their magnificence, and the exhilaration this brings for the falconer. “They’re like athletes, you know, and the falconer’s job is very much about keeping them in a really good physical and mental state,” says Lauren. “Hunting off the glove is like sprinting – you’re walking for an hour, but the flight can come down to just one minute of focus.”
Falconry furniture fit for an eagle
An eagle falconer deals with different forces and a wholly different bird to others in the falconry community – and this is reflected in unique types and grades of falconry furniture.
“The Kazakh falconers have got this ingenious armrest that pivots off the base of the horse’s saddle, so you can just put your arm in that and then it’s easy-peasy to carry the eagle, even when you’re traversing mountains,” says Lauren.
“Here in the US, I don’t want to use any armrest, because when I’m hunting off the glove, I need to be able to move exactly how I want, in the wind and with the eagle.”
Of course, Lauren does use some falconry furniture – and we’re very proud to say that this includes some items that we’ve made here in Grantham. “Ashley Clarke England’s anklets are very important, because they fit the eagle’s legs so well,” she says. “What’s unique about eagles is they’ve got feathers all the way down their legs to their toes, whereas hawks just have scales. So, put a leather anklet on a hawk’s leg and it’s fairly straightforward – but for an eagle, if the fit isn’t really perfect, the anklet can rub off their leg feathers, and I’m sure that doesn’t feel good.”
As you might expect, Lauren has worked with excellent Kazakh eagle anklets, too. “They are very well fitted as well, but they’re also adorned with little gems, which I kind of love,” she says.
The golden future
It is the berkutchi way to return a golden eagle to nature, even after many years spent hunting together, so that it may live free and continue its lineage. Perhaps this culture of giving back has influenced Lauren, who is now at the forefront of golden eagle conservation in the United States.
“What makes it hard for golden eagles is that they are so sensitive,” she says. “Their main prey diet is hares, which thrive in prairie ecosystems that now occupy a tiny fraction of the land they once did in the US. The hares aren’t doing great, and the effect goes right up to golden eagles. And it’s not just hares and habitat; it’s wind turbines, and it’s lead poisoning from hunters’ ammunition getting into the food chain.”
Considering their present challenges, it’s unsurprising that golden eagles are struggling, with over 70% of deaths in the US linked to human causes. “As a falconer, I feel obligated to contribute to some positive countermeasures,” says Lauren. “One of these, which I didn’t anticipate I would ever enjoy doing, is rehabilitation. A lot of young golden eagles come into rehab with injuries, and because they have a fairly long post-fledging dependency period, many of them haven’t yet achieved independence.
“You can’t just fix what’s wrong with them and kick them out. More than likely, they wouldn’t be able to figure out how to hunt before they get too weak.”
These young, injured eagles are unable to learn their hunting skills from their parents – but Lauren, and a handful of her peers, can fill that gap through falconry. “Before I had Link and Lyra, I had a female golden eagle from Wyoming, named Vega, who had been severely lead-poisoned,” she says.
“I flew her for two years, and it was so rewarding. First, I got her physically fit by chasing the lure, and then I took her out hunting off my glove. It took a long time, but she learned how to catch hares, and then we transitioned to soaring because that’s a different kind of fitness and skill.
“The very last thing she did with me was catch a wild hare from a soar. I fattened her up completely so that she had a nice fat layer, and then I let her go.”
And so, through ancient knowledge learned half a world away, golden eagles are being empowered to soar over the prairies, much as they do above the steppe. “When I have dreams where I’m flying, it’s not effortless, and I think that’s because I see these rehab eagles in such bad condition,” says Lauren. “But when they hunt, they’re masters of the wind.”
