The Hawk’s Bad Rap

To the Editor:

On the front page of the November 17 issue of The Bee you printed a picture of roosting “hawks.” The caption under the picture referred to the “hawks” next move is to grab and eat a chicken or two.

The picture is great and the caption is almost harmless, but not quite. There are mistakes. First of all the “hawks” are Turkey Vultures, which are scavengers and carrion eaters. The vultures in the picture can only hope that the chickens are dead chickens.

My real reason for writing this letter follows. For the past 60 years or so biologists (ornithologists, ecologists, etc.) have worked hard and successfully through education, legal battles, and other means to dispel the myth of the “chicken” hawk as the killer of chickens, the means of livelihood for some farmers. There is and has been for all these years ample evidence that hawks do not prey upon chickens. Since there are exceptions to everything in nature, it is true that under severe circumstances a hawk  may take a chicken, but this is a rare event. The effort to undo the myth has been successful enough to produce federal laws protecting hawks and Turkey Vultures from being killed. Still some are unaware of the hawk’s beneficial part in what we call the balance of nature.

Although your caption is written in a lighthearted tone, it is unfortunate that the myth of the “chicken” hawk is perpetuated at all. And since you are always careful to correct mistakes when naming individuals perhaps you could correct the mistake of naming a Turkey Vulture a hawk.

Neil Currie

10 Mountain Laurel Lane, Sandy Hook              November 24, 2000