[Oman-L] Falconry

[Terence Clark]

Message text written by Ian Harrison
>Further to the very rosy but rather uninformed picture painted by Terence
Clark's message, the only falcons in Oman are indeed normally wild
falcons.<

I think your comment is rather unfair. If you read carefully the original
question you will see that it was seeking information about falconry in
Oman. My point was not to go into all the illegal hunting activities of
which I am well aware, having lived in Oman for some 6 1/2 years, but to
answer that there are no falconers in Oman any more, from whom Herr
Neuschaeffer  might derive information breeding and training. Of course
stray falcons in jesses may be seen but they would hardly be in a position
to provide much useful information to the questioner. I would suggest
rather that as a start he reads Mark Allen's excellent book "Falconry in
Arabia" together with Faris Al-Tamimi's book "Falcons and Falconry in
Qatar", which would certainly provide more useful information about the
subject in question than a description of illegal hunting of birds and
mammals. If he is interested in past practice he might like to read my own
recent book "Al-Mansur's Book On Hunting", a translation I made with
Muawiya Derhalli of a 13th century Arabic manuscript on hunting with
raptors and carnivores. It contains a section on the traditional way of
training falcons to hunt gazelle with Saluqis as well as a list of the
birds on which the raptors were used.

Terence Clark