Harris Hawk
The Harris's Hawk or Harris Hawk is a bird of prey which breeds from southwestern United States to Chile and central Argentina. They are also regularly spotted in Western Europe, especially Britain, but these records almost certainly refer to escapes from falconry trade.
John James Audubon gave this bird its English name after his friend Edward Harris.
Harris Hawks are used in European towns to scare Pigeons and Starlings. They are also used at airports to scare birds away from runways to reduce the risk of birdstrikes with planes.
Details & Statistics
- Least Concern (LC)
- Near Threatened (NT)
- Vulnerable (VU)
- Endangered (EN)
- Critically Endangered (CR)
- Extinct in the Wild (EW)
- Extinct (EX)
Conservation
The Harris Hawk is listed as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List and was last assessed in 2012 by BirdLife International. This species has an extremely large range, and hence does not approach the thresholds for Vulnerable under the range size criterion (Extent of Occurrence <20,000 km2 combined with a declining or fluctuating range size, habitat extent/quality, or population size and a small number of locations or severe fragmentation). Despite the fact that the population trend appears to be decreasing, the decline is not believed to be sufficiently rapid to approach the thresholds for Vulnerable under the population trend criterion (>30% decline over ten years or three generations). The population size is very large, and hence does not approach the thresholds for Vulnerable under the population size criterion (<10,000 mature individuals with a continuing decline estimated to be >10% in ten years or three generations, or with a specified population structure). For these reasons the species is evaluated as Least Concern.
International Names
