A Conversation with Craig Nikitas of Bay Raptor Rescue

***Craig Nikitas holds a Cooper’s hawk he rescued from inside a building***

Around 9:00 p.m. during falcon fledging season, Craig Nikitas got a call from the San Francisco Fire Department asking him to come to Fire Station 35 on the pier. When he arrived, firefighters handed him a soaking-wet peregrine falcon fledgling in a box. She had been found grounded along the Embarcadero.

The young bird was wearing a band. She turned out to be Rachel, a high profile peregrine falcon who had hatched from a nest box on the 32nd floor of the PG&E headquarters building a few months earlier. People had been watching her grow up on a nest webcam. One of her first flights ended poorly when she flew across the city and somehow ended up in the bay. Fortunately, she was able to use the stairs in the seawall to climb out on her own.

“Picture her bobbing around in the waves in the dark with the city and the piers and the seawall all above her. How she found those stairs and got to them was a miracle,” said Craig.

Since wildlife rehabilitation facilities had already closed for the day, Craig brought her home and put her in his guest room for the night. He held her while his wife got a couple of towels, and they dried her off as well as they could.

The next morning, after the vet at WildCare determined Rachel was healthy enough to be released, Craig brought her back to the nest.

“I’ve gone into TSA-restricted areas of airports. I’ve gone into the naval shipyard welding shop in Vallejo. But the security getting into that PG&E building took longer and was more complicated,” said Craig. After a half hour, the building engineer finally took Craig and Rachel up, where she could be released.

“She tried to bite me in the face twice before she turned around and went over to the nest box,” said Craig. Rachel eventually successfully fledged.

Craig Nikitas founded Bay Raptor Rescue in 2015. He provides a free raptor rescue service to animal control agencies, wildlife rescue organizations, residents, and businesses in six Bay Area counties. Craig has thirty years of experience trapping raptors. He brings his skills, knowledge, and equipment to a wide range of rescue situations: the rafters of a commercial warehouse, the edge of the highway, an old masonry chimney, and a backyard batting cage. Once he safely captures a raptor, he will examine it to determine if it is healthy enough to be released on the spot or if he must transport it to a wildlife rehabilitation facility.

(All photographs courtesy of Bay Raptor Rescue)

***Craig Nikitas photographed with a raptor he banded on a recent trip to South Africa.***

Growing Wild (GW): What was your path to becoming a raptor rescue professional?

Craig Nikitas (CN): I’ve been fascinated with raptors since I was about eight or nine. I had dreams of being a falconer. From that age on, I did anything I could do that taught me more about them. I read everything I could. Anything that got me in their proximity, I would do. My family has always fully supported my work – first, my parents when I was a young person and later, my wife and children. My son also went into raptor banding as a volunteer. He has spent almost a decade banding with Golden Gate Raptor Observatory.

GW: Was there a particular moment that led you on this journey?

CN: There have been so many profound moments doing this work, it would be hard to pick one. When I was an adolescent, my aunt arranged for me to go to Morley Nelson’s house, a world-renowned falconer and conservationist. He had golden eagles, a prairie falcon, and peregrine falcons, which at that point were almost extinct in the United States. The peregrine falcons that were still around were primarily in the hands of falconers. Morley also had exotic falcons from the Middle East. Arabian sheiks would fly him to Arabia so that he could work with them on their falconry birds. It was jaw-dropping for me to walk through his backyard and see all these birds, his knowledge of the wild populations in South Idaho, and the great feelings he had for the conservation of the environment and protection of raptors – something I really related to.

GW: What type of intelligence do raptors have?

CN: The integration of vision into their intelligence is fascinating. I’m just reading a book called The Genius of Birds. It has been eye-opening for me. I used to do docent talks for the Golden Gate Raptor Observatory. There’d be inevitable questions about how intelligent raptors are. And I would usually say, “Well, they’re really smart at being hunters that can kill their prey, but beyond that, probably not very intelligent.” It turns out that I may have been selling them short.

When I was first learning about birds, scientists didn’t understand avian intelligence as well as they do now. Neuroscientists assumed anatomically that birds couldn’t be very smart because they didn’t have the wrinkled brain tissue that we do, with lots of folds and lots of surface area for neurons and axons and connections. The smoother an animal’s brain was, the less intelligent the animal was presumed to be. Scientists are looking at bird intelligence differently now. It turns out that they were looking for the wrong things in a bird’s brain to see the physical, anatomical structure of intelligence.

Mammalian intelligence evolved in the forebrain, and it was based on a brain whose predominant sensory input was through smell. But birds are primarily visual animals. Most birds have a very poor sense of smell, if any (the exceptions are turkey vultures and kiwis). A bird’s eyes are huge compared to its overall body mass and the volume and weight of its brain.

They have amazing visual adaptations that allow them to see better than we do in many ways. They can see more colors and more parts of the electromagnetic spectrum. Many birds have vision that goes into the ultraviolet region of the spectrum. They can also see really fast. Their optic nerve bundles feed into their brain along a much shorter path than ours, and they are interconnected to both sides of their brain. There’s something called the flicker fusion factor, which measures the frequency at which images from the eyes are refreshed in the brain. Human flicker perception is around 25 Hz. That means that if you show us a whole bunch of still pictures that go faster than 25 per second, then you will see it as a smooth movie. But if you put a bird in a movie theater, it would perceive them as a whole bunch of individual stills because their flicker fusion factor is around 75, three times faster than ours. That enables them to see motion much quicker than we can. This partly helps to explain murmurations. Large numbers of starlings will fly together and, in a fraction of a second, all change direction together. Their sensory input system is visually centered. Their intelligence, their ability to make connections, their inferences, and memories all come from the visual part of their brain.

Craig Nikitas responded to a call about a downed adult male peregrine falcon in Cupertino. Craig successfully netted the bird who had a wing injury. The bird was taken to a rehab facility because there’s a chance it’s reparable. Craig is waiting to hear back about the prognosis.

GW: What is a typical day like for you working with raptors?

CN: I go out and catch approximately 110 birds a year. I’ve gotten calls at 9:30 at night or 6:30 in the morning. I’m on call 24-7.

Bay Area animal control and wildlife rehabilitation facilities will get calls saying, “There’s a bird in the building. Can you come get it?” Those facilities usually don’t have the staff or the resources to catch flighted raptors. They’re like a hospital emergency room. The patient needs to be brought to them. The function I serve is like an EMT or an ambulance. I go and get the patient and bring it in.

I’ve been trapping raptors for thirty years, and I have the knowledge, skills and the equipment to do it. I will go into buildings, catch these guys, and give them an exam. If their body condition is good, if they have no injuries to their legs or wings or eyes, if they aren’t clinically dehydrated or emaciated, I will just take them outside and let them go and get on with their lives.

When I first started Bay Raptor Rescue in 2015, the calls were primarily about getting raptors out of buildings—usually Cooper’s hawks or occasionally a red-shouldered hawk. The birds would get trapped in the store room in the back of the grocery store, or a metal fabrication shop or a gigantic warehouse. These spaces are often huge, with high ceilings and roll-up doors. Hawks will chase a pigeon or a starling or sparrow into that space. Smaller birds are used to being on the ground and can easily fly back out, but once a raptor gets into these spaces, it can become disoriented. Often, people are milling around on the floor, possibly yelling or pointing up at the bird. Their instinct is to fly upward where they feel safe. Most of these spaces have skylights, so the bird will see the light coming through and try to get out. Eighty percent of the time, I need to trap the bird because it won’t come down low enough to fly out under the head of the door. The other twenty percent of the time, they can self-extract.

Over time, more people knew about my work, and I started getting calls to catch grounded birds outside with wing injuries or other illnesses.

Craig Nikitas got a recent call about a great horned owl whose wing was in tangled in a monofilament line tied to a second-story roof. It was dark when he arrived, and the owl had managed to fly up on the parapet. Craig duct taped a razor knife to a long pole and climbed the ladder and secured the owl. The owl was taken to Lindsay Wildlife hospital, where the prognosis was good.

GW: How do owls end up in chimneys?

CN: They are cavity nesters, and they see an opening in brick or masonry chimneys and check it out as a place to live. So the homeowner comes into the living room in the morning to find a great horned owl staring back at them through the glass door on the fireplace.

Once, I took two live screech owls out of an old chimney. I had to get on my back into the firebox and unscrew all these rusted connectors to get the old steel damper off to reach the owls above it. I got the two screech owls out, and then a desiccated screech owl skeleton fell out. An owl had died years earlier in that fireplace. Nobody ever knew about her. It didn’t get help. But at least the two recent owls survived and were ultimately released.

People need to make sure they have copper wire coverings on the top of their chimney. They serve as spark arrests to keep embers from getting out and setting their neighbor’s roof on fire, and also to keep animals out of their chimney.

GW: How do you cope with the emotions of witnessing sickness and death when you aren’t able to save a raptor successfully?

CN: It’s not uncommon for me to rescue a raptor that either succumbs to its injuries or is so badly injured that it could never be healed and rehabilitated for release, in which case state law often mandates euthanasia. Dealing with that emotionally is one of the difficult parts of my job. Sometimes, there is a run of several rescues in a row where an owl has a luxated (“dislocated”) shoulder, which is an injury raptors cannot recover from, or a spinal injury, or a severe wing trauma. I’ve had a couple of Cooper’s hawks that had been shot and were suffering with broken bones as a result. Having to see the premature end of an otherwise healthy raptor is heartbreaking. I’ve had a few rescues where the bird was obviously suffering from Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza, a new strain of SARS bird flu that is universally fatal to raptors. Car collisions cause horrific issues to the body of a bird that weighs two pounds, and very few that survive are able to be rehabilitated and released. The toll this takes is called compassion fatigue. The only solace is to know that we’ve helped a creature in terrible pain to end its suffering or avoid an even worse end.

GW: What do people need to know if they find a sick or injured raptor?

CN: Most people have an affinity for raptors. They sense or appreciate their magnificence and their power, the power of their flight, their strength, and their spirit, which is gratifying. I see that over and over again. When people reach out to me, they want to do whatever they can to save these birds. So I think what people need to know is they have the right idea, but these are incredibly fierce and wild animals. If it’s a red-tailed hawk or a great horned owl, or a peregrine falcon or an eagle, that bird can hurt you even when it’s injured. Getting professional help to handle it is the best thing you can do for the bird and for yourself.

If it’s in a building, don’t try to chase it out the door. All you are going to do is stress it. Open everything you can—skylights, windows and doors. Maybe it will fly out on its own. Find out where it is comfortable perching–you can find that spot by looking on the floor for droppings-– and put out a tin of water there. Call for help right away. Go online, call local animal control, call your nearest rehab facility. Preferably if you’re reading this, call me right away. If it’s injured or ill or tangled up in branches or netting outdoors, don’t stress the bird, stay back from it. Keep animals, pedestrians and vehicles away from it until help arrives.

Stay with the bird until help arrives. This will increase the chances of the raptor getting the help it needs. Keep your eyes on the bird if it’s got a wing injury, but is mobile. Whether it’s a little male Cooper’s hawk, or a giant turkey vulture, and anything in between, they are surprisingly nimble on their feet. They can run really fast, they can run through the brush. These guys are the only surviving dinosaurs. They are little velociraptors. So don’t chase it – it will just keep going. If it does wander off, try to figure out where it went, so when help arrives, you can point the rescuer to where the raptor is.

GW: What skills do you need to learn if you want to work with raptors?

CN: First, you need to learn how to handle birds of prey safely. To do that, you will need to work with a licensed rehab or research facility with the required legal permits. Volunteering at a wildlife organization can involve a significant time commitment, and you won’t necessarily get to work with raptors right away. For example, during my time at WildCare, I cleaned out skunk enclosures, which I enjoyed doing because I love skunks.

You need to have good ID skills and familiarity with the natural history of the raptors. This knowledge is a critical component of effective rescues. You need a driver’s license. You need a federal permit to trap these birds and to work out your rescue process with the California Fish and Wildlife. I have a federal permit and a Memorandum of Understanding with State Fish and Wildlife, and I report to them in real time all my rescues of protected birds.

GW: What do you find most rewarding?

CN: The release of a healthy raptor—whether it’s right after it was caught in a building or it’s been in rehab for three weeks—is what this is all about for me. Watching it fly off into its territory, into the world it should be living in—there is no feeling like that.

I recently responded to a call about a great horned owl that had flown into somebody’s backyard batting cage, which was a wooden frame with soft netting draped over it. The owl was flying around in there, unable to find its way back out. After I went there to catch her, I felt that her body condition was good. She could fly well and had no injuries. I took her outside the batting cage, let her go, and watched her fly into the forest. It was just beautiful.

***Craig Nikitas with a great horned owl rescued from netting on a batting cage***

GW: What keeps you showing up after all these years doing this work for raptors?

CN: I don’t know how to say it except to say I love them so much. Once, I drove almost two hours one way to get a Cooper’s hawk out of an auto body shop. I usually don’t go that far, but I couldn’t let that hawk die inside this dusty, chemical-filled, horrible little shop. So I drove out there, spent about 15 or 20 minutes trapping the hawk, turned it loose outside, and drove back.

GW: What do you hope for the future of raptors and people?

CN: I’m hoping we can continue to make environmental improvements that allow raptors to live the way they should in this world. We have built buildings and windows that they run into. They collide with our vehicles. We’ve poisoned their prey. The less evolved among us even shoot them. We’ve fragmented their territories and the ecosystems in which they live. We’ve introduced non-native plants and animals that have interfered with the ability to live in the world they evolved in.

The more we can do to change that, to lessen humans' negative impacts on the world, the better it will be for all of us, including the raptors.

There is reason to be hopeful. Think of the history of the insecticide DDT. Ospreys, bald eagles, Cooper’s hawks, peregrine falcons, and pelicans were dying out because we were poisoning our world with this insecticide. But when it was banned in North America, the populations of those birds rebounded. There are dozens and dozens of nesting ospreys in the Bay Area now. There are a few dozen peregrine falcon and bald eagle nests in the Bay Area. Cooper’s hawk populations have rebounded, and they have been able to adapt to suburban and even urban life in spite of evolving to be “forest hawks.”

If we give them a chance, they’ll take it.

To learn more about Craig’s work you can visit him on his website at Bay Raptor Rescue