For falconers: a sixth sense for your bird

In short: Power poles kill birds of prey all over the world, and a falconry bird flying free over open country is exposed to the same danger. The same is true for wind turbines. bAWARE gives the bird a warning: a small unit that senses a live power line or knows where turbines are, and warns the bird before it approaches, first with a sound and then, if it keeps coming, with a harmless electro-tactile stimulus that makes it turn away. bAWARE does not want to replace the telemetry falconers know and trust. It wants to add the one thing no falconry tag has: an alarm for mortal dangers. bAWARE was started by a falconer, with saving the most endangered wild raptor populations as first priority, and we see falconry and raptor conservation as two halves of the same passion.

Why this matters to falconers

Roughly one bird is electrocuted every three seconds worldwide, about 10 million a year [1]. Among large migratory birds tracked by satellite in Africa and Eurasia, electrocution was the most frequent known human cause of death [2]. Falcons are no exception: the International Association for Falconry has estimated that about 4,000 saker falcons are killed every year in Central Asia alone, and the raptor fund set up in Abu Dhabi in 2018 took falcon electrocution as one of its first causes [3].

A falconry bird hunts the way a wild bird does, and dies the same way. Our landscapes are so full of power lines and wind turbines that it is rarely possible to fly in country without them. After an unsuccessful flight, a free-flying bird can choose a power pole over a tree, and species that pursue their quarry over long distances are most exposed. In many conversations with falconers around the world, the story is the same: many have lost a bird this way, or know someone who has. For a falconer, that is not a statistic or the price of procuring another bird: Given these birds can live decades, it is often many years of daily work, and a hunting partner and family member. Many a falconer has stopped when that one irreplaceable bird died for whatever reason.

Falconers have used telemetry for decades, for a simple reason: to find their bird again when it flies out of sight. In the heat of a long pursuit, or soaring in search of thermals, a bird that always returns to the fist of its own free will can still be lost from mutual view. A specialised industry serves falconers, from battery-powered VHF and UHF transmitters and receivers to solar-powered GPS tags that send their position over the mobile phone network to an app, far beyond the range of any directional antenna. Simon Thomsett and Gunter Schoech, the founders of bAWARE, have used this technology through decades of its evolution.

bAWARE shares many components with high-end falconry telemetry. In some respects it does more: it is built to stay on a wild bird for years rather than be fitted before each hunt, and it records far more, for example accelerometer data that show how the bird behaves around each warning and other health and environmental data. In other areas it is calibrated to do less. Its tracking and data transmission are optimized for research and battery life, not for an afternoon's hunting. It can follow a bird across a migration, but in its current programming, it will not show the falconer every turn, climb and stoop of a flight with the speed and altitude detail that GPS tags with barometric altimeters now provide. Falconers on the other hand have invested hundreds or thousands of dollars in telemetry they have learned to use and trust, and focus on more detail in short deployments.

So bAWARE does not aim to replace falconry telemetry. It aims to add to it the one function no falconry tag on the market has: the alarm.

What bAWARE plans for falconers

Now: proof first. We are building a fully integrated product, including a world class research-grade tracking tag with the bAWARE sensor and alarm, to prove in scientific field trials with wild populations of endangered raptors that the warning works, and to learn how birds react to it.
Next: an alarm base plate. Once effectiveness is proven, we plan a stand-alone power-line sensor and alarm built into a base plate and harness, with its own small rechargeable battery, that falconers can use with the telemetry they already own. Nothing changes for the falconer except that the base plate and harness can now warn before it lands on a power pole. The alarm function, including a tiny rechargeable battery, currently weighs 6.5 g, and gets smaller with every iteration.
With telemetry makers: the alarm inside the tag. Makers of falconry tags who want to build the alarm into their own products can license our patent-pending technology. With their tag's GPS, the same geofencing we use for wind turbines can be implemented, and also warn the bird away from hazards the falconer chooses: a motorway, a railway, an airfield. Falconers could limit their bird’s whereabouts to a safe territory where they have the right to hunt.

In this version, the warning distances can be adjusted over the app.

How the warning works, and why it is safe

Every falconer knows that a bird stops reacting to its own bells almost immediately. Our first tests confirmed it: a sound or a vibration alone produced a reaction at first, and by the next day almost none. A buzzer alone does not keep a bird off a pole. Some falconers even use electronic bells to locate their bird when in hearing distance. The birds don’t mind.

That is why bAWARE follows the sound with an electro-tactile stimulus, and why the sound comes first: the bird learns that the sound announces something unpleasant, and avoids it.

The stimulus makes the bird's breast muscles twitch involuntarily, a sensation a bird does not tolerate. The principle is familiar from people: muscle-toning belts that contract the abdominal muscles with electrical pulses are approved for home use and sold to the public [4]. Many falconers also work dogs and know electric training collars. Because the bAWARE unit sits in close contact with the bird's skin, it needs only a fraction of the power of such a collar. Should the twitch ever not be enough, the unit has the reserve to give a sensation like the one a dog feels from its collar. The bird chooses: turn away at the sound, and nothing more happens.

Falconry training itself shows how fast a raptor learns what to approach and what to avoid. Sensor, electro-tactile stimulus and release now work in prototype, repeatedly, on real power lines and on live birds. The sensor has been tested many times on real lines since March 2026, on 20 kV wooden poles and 63 kV lattice towers; 20 kV is the hardest case, so detecting it at 50 m means detecting every relevant line.

Falconry and conservation: one passion

At bAWARE we believe that raptor conservation and falconry go hand in hand, and that neither can do without the other. Everything starts with intact habitat, home to wild raptors and their prey. Even where falconry birds today are mostly or entirely captive-bred, their ancestors came from the wild, and falconers need healthy ecosystems so that their birds can hunt natural prey.

Conservation, in turn, relies on falconry. Rehabilitation of injured or poisoned birds and captive breeding of endangered species use methods of husbandry that falconers developed and perfected over thousands of years. Anyone who handles a raptor to ring it, treat it, tag it or measure it for a study needs falconry skills. And a captive-bred or rehabilitated bird must be in peak condition to survive after release; fitness at release has been studied as a determining factor in the survival of rehabilitated falcons and hawks [5]. Falconry is how such birds are trained to hunt and built up like athletes before they go free.

In the beginning, falconry and conservation were hardly separate. A falconer would trap a passage bird, a first-year bird already hunting for itself but without a mate or territory, fly it for a season, and release it as it entered adult life. A season on the fist also carries a young bird through the hardest time of its life: most young raptors die in their first year, while a passage bird is fed through its first winter and returns to the wild in peak condition.

When pesticides such as DDT drove the peregrine falcon towards extinction in North America, falconers were at the heart of the rescue. The Raptor Research Foundation was formed in 1966 by a group of falconers and biologists, mainly to save the peregrine [6]. The techniques that made captive breeding possible, such as artificial insemination with birds that accept humans as mates, grew out of the close bond between trained raptors and their handlers [6]. Falconers offered their healthy birds, used these techniques at scale and perfected them. The falconer and biologist Heinz Meng was, in 1971, the first scientist to breed peregrine falcons for release into the wild [7]; falconers and birders across the United States funded the research [8]; and The Peregrine Fund alone bred and released more than 4,000 falcons between 1974 and 1997 [9]. The peregrine was removed from the US endangered species list in 1999 [8].

Falconry is recognised today by UNESCO as a living human heritage, in a joint inscription by 24 countries [10], and the International Association for Falconry and Conservation of Birds of Prey, with 69 member organisations in 48 nations, counts the conservation of birds of prey among its aims [11].

bAWARE's co-founder Simon Thomsett lives that symbiosis. He is a falconer like few others: more than 60 years of daily, hands-on conservation and rehabilitation work with raptors of species from all over the world, many thousands of birds of prey that have passed through his hands, and many firsts in raptor surgery. He also ran Africa's first full captive-breeding cycle of crowned eagles whose young went on to breed, in Kenya: his pair raised 9 young, all trained and soft-released into the wild, and three of them were later found breeding at their own nests.

Gunter Schoech, bAWARE's other co-founder, is a falconer himself and a member of ANFA, the French national falconry association, which supports bAWARE with guidance and expertise. bAWARE is self-financed. ANFA's yearbook for 2026 carries an article about bAWARE.

Not every chapter of this history is bright, on either side. There have been black sheep among falconers, who put possessing the birds they admire above the good of the species and took eggs or wild birds illegally. And in science, the question of whether bare power lines kill birds of prey has been answered over and over again. Every new study that asks it once more costs time the birds do not have, and gives those who could act today one more reason to wait for the next result. Research for its own sake can lose sight of the goal, which is conservation: once enough is known, it is time to act.

bAWARE was born out of that frustration: decades of evidence, and still too little action. We are convinced that the best of falconry and the best of conservation science, together, can make sure the magnificent birds we all love survive in the wild.

What to expect today (October 2026)

Pre-series tags will be available in 2027 and go first to captive birds and then controlled field trials with scientific and conservation partners on wild birds. The alarm base plate for falconers follows once the field trials have proven that the warning works. Telemetry makers interested in licensing can talk to us now.

Get involved

If you fly a bird in country with power lines and want to hear when the alarm base plate becomes available, or if you make falconry telemetry and want to discuss licensing, tell us through the contact page. What we look for in field partners is described under "Who we are looking for". We are not seeking funding.

Related: How bAWARE works · The methods compared · FAQ

Frequently asked questions

Will the stimulus hurt my bird?

No. It makes the breast muscles twitch, which the bird does not tolerate, at a fraction of the power of a dog's electric training collar, and it is preceded by a sound so that the bird can avoid it altogether. The safety of the bird wearing the unit is one of the two equal aims of our field trials.

Won't my bird just get used to it, like to its bell?

To a sound alone, yes; we have seen it. That is why the sound is followed by a stimulus if the bird keeps coming, with a stronger reserve should it ever be needed. The bird learns to avoid the sound because of what follows it. It learns to avoid the danger, instead of learning to ignore the warning.

Does it replace my telemetry?

No. The planned alarm base plate works with the telemetry you already own.

Tag makers can also license the alarm and build it into their tags.

Can I switch the warning off?

No; that would defeat its purpose. But the warning distances can be set, for example shorter than the defaults for wild birds.

How heavy is it?

The alarm function, including a tiny rechargeable battery, currently weighs 6.5 g, and it gets smaller with every iteration.

Does it also warn at wind turbines and other hazards?

The conservationist version for wild raptors does. For falconers, wind turbines and zones of the falconer's choice, such as a motorway or an airfield, need GPS. That will come with telemetry makers who license the alarm and combine it with their GPS tags.

When can I get one?

The alarm base plate follows the field trials with pre-series tags, which start in 2027. We will publish the date and price when they are fixed.

Sources

Virani, M. (2026). What raptors teach us about saving life on Earth. TEDxOxford, TEDx Talks (YouTube), published 16 July 2026; statement at 0:57. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5E1TrNhuXg
Serratosa, J., Oppel, S., Rotics, S. et al. (2024). Tracking data highlight the importance of human-induced mortality for large migratory birds at a flyway scale. Biological Conservation 293: 110525. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2024.110525
Gulf News (2018). Foundation formed to curb falcon deaths. 5 November 2018. https://gulfnews.com/amp/story/uae%2Fenvironment%2Ffoundation-formed-to-curb-falcon-deaths-1.2212204
U.S. Food and Drug Administration (2009). 510(k) K091833, GEM-TONE Abdominal Training System (powered muscle stimulator, 21 CFR 890.5850, Class II), cleared 16 October 2009 for over-the-counter strengthening, toning and firming of the abdomen. Record via https://fda.innolitics.com/device/K091833
Holz, P.H., Naisbitt, R. & Mansell, P. (2006). Fitness level as a determining factor in the survival of rehabilitated peregrine falcons (Falco peregrinus) and brown goshawks (Accipiter fasciatus) released back into the wild. Journal of Avian Medicine and Surgery 20(1): 15–20. https://doi.org/10.1647/1082-6742(2006)20[15:FLAADF]2.0.CO;2
Platt, J.B., Bird, D.M. & Bardo, L. Captive Breeding. In: Raptor Research Foundation, Raptor Research and Management Techniques manual, chapter 21, pp. 383–400. https://raptorresearchfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Techniques_Manual_Chapter-21.pdf
State University of New York at New Paltz, Department of Biology. About Heinz K. Meng. https://www.newpaltz.edu/biology/about-heinz-k-meng/
Cornell University, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (2019). Tom Cade, who saved peregrine falcons, dies at 91. 28 February 2019. https://cals.cornell.edu/news/tom-cade-who-saved-peregrine-falcons-dies-91
The Peregrine Fund. History of the Peregrine Falcon. https://peregrinefund.org/history-peregrine-falcon
UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage (2021). Falconry, a living human heritage. Inscribed 2021 (16.COM) on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity; 24 submitting states. https://ich.unesco.org/en/RL?RL=01209
UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage. International Association for Falconry and Conservation of Birds of Prey (IAF), accredited NGO 00428: description. https://ich.unesco.org/en/accredited-ngos/international-association-for-falconry-and-conservation-of-birds-of-prey-iaf-00428