Czech hobbyists celebrate inclusion of falconry on UNESCO heritage list

Last week UNESCO added two Czech traditions to it list promoting the safeguarding of so-called ‘Intangible Cultural Heritage’. One of them was a tradition also shared by ten other countries across Europe, the Middle East and Asia. Falconry in both Bohemia and Moravia goes back many hundreds of years and still has a wide following among both professionals and hobbyists.

A little earlier I spoke to Bohumil Straka, the vice president of the International association for Falconry and Conservation of Birds of Prey, who was present at the recent UNESCO meeting in Nairobi:

“This decision was very, very important for the global falconry community. It is the first time in history that falconry as a hunting method has been recognised by the global cultural community. Normally, nominations to the UNESCO list would be put forward by one country but in this case it was 11: four countries from Europe, five from the Middle East and two from Asia. It never happened before that 11 countries joined in a common effort to nominate a cultural element to the UNESCO heritage list.”

I’ve read that the history of falconry goes back some 4,000 years so obviously in many ways it is a shared tradition as you say. How far back do the roots of Czech falconry go?

Bohumil Straka

“This is a very old tradition, older even than the Egyptian pyramids. Some new findings suggest that falconry could even be 7,000 years old. Concerning the Czech Republic, we know from archaeological finds that falconry in Bohemia dates back to the 5th century, 1,500 years ago. They found an artefact near Prague, in the village of Vinarice, a clip of a falcon with a hood. Another find, in Moravia, dates back to the Great Moravian Empire almost a thousand years ago: an item showing a falconer on horseback. We use that as the emblem for the Czech falconry club.”

Would you say that Czech falconry, to a degree, benefits from the many castles – medieval castles – around the country which feature birds of prey as an attraction?

“Actually, I don’t think it really does. There are some 500 registered falconers and only around 10 percent are professionals. I’d say around 50 falconers are professionals providing the use of birds of prey at airports, which saves lives, or running shows for the public. But of course, programmes at castles are in large part the only contact the larger public has with the hobby.”

What is it like to work with a bird of prey and how would you describe the relationship?

“The relationship is very special: even if the bird is bred in captivity, genetically it is still ‘wild’. It is not a domestic animal. The relationship provides a lot of freedom to the bird: and the excitement is not only in whether or not it will be successful in the hunt, but whether it will even return! The bird does not need an owner, it can live without man. But the relationship is one of mutual respect as well as benefit.”