“When you’re practicing falconry, it’s very, it’s you, your dogs, and the raptor, no one else around,” says Kathleen Tigan, the owner of Raptor Adventures, and a lifelong falconer in the Reno-Tahoe region. 

Tigan is one of just 63 certified falconers in Nevada, and 4,000 nationwide.

Tigan keeps several birds of prey for sport, including various owls, but the most effective bird is one that is found locally, the peregrine falcon. The peregrine is renowned for its speed, and is the most fast animal on the planet, with the ability to reach speeds of up to 200 mph in downward flight. 

This also makes it one of the most ideal species for falconry, an ancient — and now very niche sport which often involves hunting, but can also encompass forming hobby partnerships with the birds. It can also be used for abatement work, such as chasing seagulls and others seen as pests out of tourist-heavy areas, farms and even landfills. 

Peregrine falcons once heavily populated the Lake Tahoe region, and were reported to be seen often until the 1970s, when their population reached historic lows due to the use of pesticides like DDT and aldrin. Before their decline, they were often spotted nesting at Echo Summit and Cave Rock. 

An 1877 US Geological Survey characterized the birds as “met with frequently in early fall.” The estimated 3,875 breeding pairs of peregrines dropped to just 324 across North America in 1975. 

It wasn’t until 2006 that the raptors truly made a resurgence in the Tahoe region, although their population still has not grown to its prior breadth of a century prior. They were delisted from the endangered species list in 1999. 

In some accounts, it was local falconers who helped revive the swift bird of prey’s population, through captive breeding. There are roughly 4,000 licensed falconers across the US, of which 700 are in California and 63 in Nevada. For Tigan, falconry is about the freedom, and the experience of sharing open space with a very intelligent — and sometimes unpredictable creature.

“Just the way that the birds can maneuver their bodies and pursue something, and the fact that they allow you to participate, that they allow you to be right there with them and share in what they’re doing.”

“I can’t tell him no,” she adds. “I can’t tell him stop. I can’t raise my voice or have a specific body language way that you do. None of that means anything to them. And it’s just through that instinctual process of, we’re just gonna share it. I’m always gonna be fair to you.”

“It’s this deal that we’ve made,” she says. The wide open spaces of the region also offer ideal grounds to practice the sport. 

Unlike training a dog, for example, working with raptors involves several variables, and there is no guarantee that they will behave exactly as expected.

“Every time I fly I’m prepared. You have gas in the car, you have a little money in your pocket…I always wear shoes that I’m able to hike in because it’s not the first time I’ve been up to the top of that hill or down into the neighbor’s yard or had the police called on me and all of those types of things,” she says. 

Tigan uses a tracking receiver called a radio telemetry when she takes the falcons out, a tool which to her neighbors looked like a gun in the distance. In light of that, police arrived to investigate. 

“Cop had me. Hands behind my back. Handcuffed. And then I’m still looking for my bird,”

She says time is of the essence, as “they go feral very quickly.” 

While peregrine falcons and other large birds of prey now thrive in the region, becoming a legal practitioner of the sports requires extensive schooling and licensing, with at least two years required as an apprentice and an additional five to become a Master Class falconer. But for Tigan, and her husband who is also licensed, the privilege to work with birds like the peregrine is worth it.

“There are not very many falconers in the modern world, so it’s a really privileged insight into something that is so not domesticated. It just is it it is what it is, bare bones.”

To spot peregrine falcons in the wild, which are not to be disturbed, hikers may see them around Castle Rock and Eagle Rock, where signs are posted by the US Forest Service.

Editor’s note: This article originally appeared in the Summer 2025 edition of Tahoe Magazine.